


Take me to the river

by Shaish



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Captain America Sam Wilson, Gen, Glowing tentacles, Lots of Water, M/M, Memories, Octo Steve, Octo Steve Rogers, OctoSteve, Octopus Steve Rogers, Pining, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Recovery, Tentacle Dick, Tentacle Monsters, Tentacle Sex, Tentacle Steve Rogers, Tentacle steve, Tentacles, Winter Soldier Bucky, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 06:30:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaish/pseuds/Shaish
Summary: “Now, Hill.”“But, Barnes, you’re-”“Blow it!” he growls into the comms. Her voice goes silent. He can finally take a breath when he feels the helicarrier shift with the blast impact. He starts down the catwalk when the whole thing shakes again and a beam comes down on him before he has time to dodge, falling from the catwalk and through the hole the beam makes in the glass dome below. He free falls, deja vu sending his stomach up into his throat, and hits the water hard, debris hitting him harder, a sharp pain to his head.He drifts and sinks under the weight of his left arm, and just as his vision starts to go, he sees something...glowing.





	1. Situation Normal All Fucked Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZimaAktivov](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZimaAktivov/gifts).



> This is for Zima. It's not finished but it's been languishing so I'm going to post what I have and probably come back later. I just want to get SOME of it up at least. It's not beta'd by anyone but me so sorry in advance.  
> Title from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaW4pv-1YDA "Take me to the river" by KALEIDA

“Now, Hill.”

“ _But, Barnes, you’re_ -”

“Blow it!” he growls into the comms. Her voice goes silent. He can finally take a breath when he feels the helicarrier shift with the blast impact. He starts down the catwalk when the whole thing shakes again and a beam comes down on him before he has time to dodge, falling from the catwalk and through the hole the beam makes in the glass dome below. He free falls, deja vu sending his stomach up into his throat, and hits the water hard, debris hitting him harder, a sharp pain to his head.

He drifts and sinks under the weight of his left arm, and just as his vision starts to go, he sees something...glowing.

\-----

A man with red wings tell it its name is Captain America. No...Barnes, and it is Captain America, whoever that is. It is a moniker like Soldier, Asset, Winter Soldier, but not.

...No, this is...after. The first was-

Two forms in the gun’s heat sensor screen mounted on top of the rifle, targets drifting through the circular sight lines, one taller than the other. Target is six foot two, the other is shorter. 

It lines up and takes the shot.

All three bullets hit the target through the wall. It watches, listens to the shouts and waits, waits.

It is spotted, pursued. It runs. A shield-

 _He catches it, twirls it, adjusting to its weight in his hands_ -

**No.**

It catches it, throws it back.

 _Yes_.

It is sent out again on a loud mission, in the open. It is caught by a red haired woman aiding the shield man with the wings. Its mask is removed. Their eyes are wide.

There are names, pictures, dates, facts.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” says the shield man- Sam Wilson. Wilson continues, speaks of stories and pasts and names. The red haired woman says little, eyes calculating, body poised, ready to strike.

“You shot out my tires,” she says, lifting her shirt to reveal a bullet scar above her hip. 

There is nothing in its memory, and then...something. It is not supposed to be there, but it is, and it...expands.

\-----

Captain America is a propaganda story.

James Buchanan Barnes is an oasis image, perfect and untouchable.

The Soldier is a melting glacier, or a ticking bomb. Maybe it is both.

Little makes sense, but shards, pieces surface.

\-----

“You good to go?” Wilson asks, watching him stare out at the trees and mountains from a cement bridge, staring into the past. Is that what it is supposed to be?

“I am operational,” comes the automatic reply, ingrained in it since birth. Second birth. A rebirth, apparently.

“Sure you can handle this?” the red woman- Romanoff, no first name given, asks half an hour later, looking up from checking over her gun with knowing eyes.

“I guess we’ll see,” slips out in an accent he hasn’t carried in years.

Her lips twitch, just a fraction, and he only puts its head in his hands when the echo of her footfalls recede.

It can handle the mission. He can complete the objective, but God, he’s mess.

\-----

Hydra falls and it is untethered. Hydra falls, he falls, it falls, and this is the first taste of something like freedom in years.

He doesn’t know what to feel. It burns like an ache and a burden and it doesn’t know if it was meant to feel this, if it can survive that fall like it can probably survive this one into the water.

\-----

It coughs, he groans, cracks his eyes open and them slams them shut, blinking them as he rolls onto his side and coughs some more. His throat burns like fire and tastes like it too, along with wet, burnt paper, fuel, and ash. His insides are probably flammable now. Water comes up the back of his throat and streams out his nose and it coughs again. It keeps rolling onto his chest and he pushes himself up, struggling and staggering to his feet. He looks out at the water.

The billows of smoke coming from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ruined building has slowed and the helicarriers have sunk below the water’s surface. Hydra isn’t gone, but it is defeated here. Hydra is…

There’s a rustle of bushes and it jerks around, left arm coming up-

“Barnes!” the man with red wings- Wilson says, relief on his face and bright shield on his forearm, “You made it.”

The Soldier slowly lowers his arm, eyes roving over Wilson to check him back before glancing down at where he was laying, then out at the water.

 _Something glowing_ …

His brow furrows a little. “I supposed I did.”

Wilson slowly steps closer, looking out at the wreckage somberly for a minute before shifting his gaze to it. “You wanna come with me?”

The Soldier drags his eyes over. “Where?”

“New York,” Wilson answers, “Avengers Tower. Doesn’t have to be permanent if you don’t want it to be,” he adds, “But we’ve got the space, and it’ll be some place you can lay low for a while, figure out whatever you need to do next.”

‘Next’?

The Soldier looks down at the water.

He’s never given thought to ‘next’, not beyond the immediate, the mission, the orders.

His programming is recoiling, he can feel it like a snake trying to slither backwards in his chest, his head, through his veins, but the Barnes part of him says, “Okay,” and some of the Soldier agrees, small as it is. It is enough of a tipping point to move his feet.

He turns away from the water after a moment to follow Wilson across the mud into the trees, and wonders why moving away from the water and wreckage pulls at his gut, makes him want to turn back. But he keeps walking, one foot in front of the other, and thinks maybe it is because of Hydra.

\-----

New York City is...unfamiliarity, layered over vague, distant impressions. It is like a kaleidoscope that feels like looking into the wrong glasses too long, eyes straining, and he has to close them as they drive through the city, keep them down and glance up in quick, brief bursts to check his surroundings. The Tower, thankfully, is wholly unfamiliar, if extremely obvious and sending his programming into a panic, so he can scan the parking garage and the shiny white elevator he slowly follows Wilson into without pain or disorientation or both.

“ _Good evening, Captain Wilson_ ,” a voice says from all over.

The Soldier throws its left arm up to block his face and his reflexes have him in a defensive position before he registers it.

“Hey, Jarvis,” Sam replies, looking over at him. “That’s Jarvis, Stark’s A.I. He runs the Tower,” he explains calmly.

“ _I do apologize if I have startled you, Captain Barnes_.”

Barnes blinks slowly. “Jarvis?” he asks flatly.

“ _Yes, sir_ ,” the Jarvis-voice returns.

The Soldier stares around the elevator and keeps himself still, only moving to follow Sam out after it finally comes to a stop what feels like an eternity later (and manages not to bolt for the stairs). They enter what seems to be some sort of gathering room: a large kitchen to the right and dining area to the left, a long table down the center about twelve feet before a around couch in front of a large, wall mounted tv, a long, clean cut section of open fireplace beneath it, not currently burning.

“This is the communal floor,” Wilson explains, “One of them. We all gather here for meetings, but not always mission ones. We had a late Thanksgiving here last year.”

The Soldier holds in a frown.

“You’re free to look around later,” Wilson continues, “I just figured this would be a good place to meet the Tower owner.”

So, the occupants don’t all make lone decisions, he considers, filing it away for later. The elevator doors slide open and it whips around, tense.

“Well, hello tall, dark, and murdery,” a man says, older, in his forties, short, dark facial hair. Something about his face almost feels like the deja vu it felt when it fell from the helicarrier, but it forces the feeling away.

“Barnes, this is Mr. Stark,” Wilson says, “Mr. Stark, meet James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Ah. Cap 1.0,” Stark says, staying in the elevator, it notes, but his hands are at his sides, “Not exactly how I thought I’d meet you, if I ever met you.”

Wilson raises an eyebrow.

“What?” Stark asks, catching it, “So half of the scenarios I’d come up with involved me punching him. I was young!”

Wilson’s expression slowly goes flat.

“Okay, more than half,” Stark admits.

Wilson looks skyward briefly.

Stark studies it for a moment. “You’re a mess, Barnes.”

 _Stating the obvious_ , part of it thinks.

“You’re a wizard, Harry!” a man shouts and it whips around, sees a dirty blonde head of hair pop up from the other side of the couch. The man turns his head and grins, a bandage across the bridge of his nose.

“ _Barton_ ,” Wilson scolds firmly. The man ducks his head a little, looking sheepish. “I was introducing Stark today. _Only_ Stark.”

“Sorry,” the man- Barton, apparently, says, staying where he is. His eyes shift to the asset and he smiles. It looks warm, friendly, but the asset just feels tense, surrounded on all sides. “I’m Clint Barton, resident sniper. I hear you’re pretty good though.”

It’s eyes scan the three of them.

“Oookay, enough overstimulation for the dirty bomb today,” Stark says, “We’ll chat again later. You can stay in apartment 124. Feel free to look around but don’t maim anyone. Toodles.” The elevator doors slide closed and take Stark away with them.

It keeps an eye on them, but that’s a fraction less adversary it has to think about.

“They take some getting used to,” Wilson says almost gently.

Its eyes dart back to him, then Barton, who’s still sitting on the couch, tv turned on and silent while he plays some sort of game, facing away. 

Another fraction less.

They stand there for...a while. Wilson doesn’t push him, doesn’t order him, just waits him out, or gives it the time to process what it needs to in order to risk moving. When it can, Wilson leads it into the elevator and they go to apartment 124.

It is large, modestly decorated, nothing personal, but the size of the place brings a picture to mind of six guards in suits standing evenly spaced along the walls of a large, gold and blue room.

“If you need anything, you can ask Jarvis, or Jarvis can get me, if you prefer,” Wilson says, smiling over at it, “I know this is probably a lot. You want me to go?”

It watches him for a minute, trying to figure out if that’s a trick question to punish or-

He nods and Wilson smiles again, nods back, and- just leaves.

It stares at the door for a minute, five, ten, but he doesn’t come back and no one comes in, and it is left in the silence. It heads for the door- 

Stops. Turns around to walk back- 

Stops.

It is not dressed for a daylight, incognito mission. Even with its skills, it will have to wait for night.

It walks over to the corner with the best sightlines while still being away from the curving wall of windows and sits, waits.

\-----

They don’t stop him when he tries to leave. The voice doesn’t say anything in the elevator, the elevator goes all the way down, and no one is waiting for him when he slips out into the parking garage. He is quiet. The Soldier is quiet. They are quiet. The machine in the walls is quiet. They are probably tracking it, but that is not unusual, nor impossible to slip.

He moves through the darkest shadows he can find on the streets, sticks close to the walls, taking sharp turns and cutting down alleyways, following his feet. They know where they are going.

He ends up back at the water.

It scouts the area, keeps its distance when he sees searchlights and hears machinery, investigating the perimeter. Construction workers, trying to clear the failure.

Its eyebrows draw down together and he moves further up the river towards the connecting ocean. The water smells clearer here, less like oil and ash the further up he goes. He sits down in the shadows almost completely behind a tree and some bushes and watches the moon and starlight shimmer and shift on the small, rolling waves.

Now it can process.

It is James Buchanan Barnes. He is Captain America.

Sam Wilson is Captain America.

It has been allowed to stay at Avengers Tower.

Hydra is scattered.

It should find Hydra, go to an extraction point-

The _Barnes_ part in him recoils, puts his foot down on tentative ground and it shakes.

The distant sounds of machinery go another hour, then another, and it settles before the sounds stop. The light glow turns off in its periphery.

It takes a breath.

Lets it out, and watches the water.

It is gently roiling, ever moving, and...calming, almost.

It goes back to the Tower before dawn and curls up in the too large apartment’s bathtub, and closes its eyes.

\-----

Wilson stops by in the morning, at least that’s what the glowing white words on the wall say. It stares at them, watches them shift.

‘ _I thought this would make you feel more comfortable with my communication_.’

It blinks slowly. “Jarvis?”

‘ _Yes, Captain Barnes_.’

He’s not sure what to think about that.

It lowers itself down from its one-armed handstand and goes to the door, cracking it open the barest amount and keeping its body out of the line of fire.

“Hey, there,” Wilson’s voice says through the narrow gap, almost chipper, “Just thought I’d come say hey.”

The Soldier stays where he is. “You have been observing me.” Wilson already knows how it is.

“Jarvis is keeping track of your vitals to make sure you’re alive, but that’s it. He does it for all of us,” Wilson adds quickly.

The Soldier waits for a reprimand for leaving the compound, tense behind the door. It’s almost worse, not seeing. But Wilson keeps quiet, which raises his defenses.

“Yes, we know you left,” Wilson breaks the tense silence, “I worried about you and Stark was on standby just in case you were attacked, but it’s not anyone’s place to tell you where you can or cannot go, what you can or cannot do. Understand?”

The Soldier keeps still, listening intently, catalogues respiratory, the steady beat of Wilson’s heart in his chest. They all read clear. Only the Widows are that good.

_Widows?_

Barnes pulls the door open enough to look at Wilson, whose expression is open but steady. He believes what he is saying.

“You’re...concerned, for my wellbeing?” Barnes asks.

Wilson nods. “Yeah, man. I don’t know how Hydra’s been treating you all these years, though I can guess it hasn’t been good, but me and Stark and Barton? We just want you to be okay, someday, whenever you get there, at your own pace.”

Barnes stares at him, eyes shifting between both of Wilson’s dark ones. His eyebrows slowly draw together a little while he thinks that over. He barely remembers anything, and ‘being okay’ isn’t one of them. “You are...not my handlers,” the asset says slowly.

“No,” Wilson answers, body signs unchanging, “No one is but you now, not even Hydra.”

The Soldier keeps staring, trying to understand. The Barnes part helps, but it is not a cure-all.

“ _We are beholden to no one_ ,” a voice says in its head, distant and deep and none it can ever remember hearing. Who said that?

‘Beholden to no one’. No one?

No one but itself. Himself?

A feeling swells in its chest, yawns open wide with the vastness of the thought. It is too much.

“I’ll go,” Wilson says quickly after another few moments of blank staring. He gives the Soldier a small smile and the asset watches until he is in the elevator before slowly closing the door. It returns to the tub and stares at the white wall of it while its mind does figure eights and complex circles, spinning and spinning and spinning.

_‘No one’._

_‘No one’._

_‘No one’_.

\--

It returns to the water that night, watches the light on the waves and listens to the distant sound of the construction machines. It helps, focuses its attention on its surroundings instead of the mess in his head. It hears something big shift and metal groan, but the machines keep going.

After a while, something changes with the water and its attention shifts sharply, focusing on it. It moves...differently, like something’s disturbing it from below. The machines and workers are too far away for that to be the cause, unless they’ve lifted the entire helicarrier wreckage out with a single crane (very low probability). The asset listens for the construction grew, but it’s gone quiet. The light in its periphery switches off.

The water shifts again after a minute, dark surface swirling under starlight and he sits up, slowly reaching a hand down for one of the knives at its back. He starts to make out a low glow in the water that slowly gets bigger, brighter- _writhes_ in the dark as it gets closer to the surface. It draws its knife, shifting into a low crouch like a jaguar poised to strike. The glow gets brighter-

Something breaches the surface, slowly comes up- a dome shape that slowly resolves itself into wet hair, black in the night, a forehead, two slitted, blue eyes and a long nose. It’s-

A person? The ears are pointed, sticking out between the hair.

The Soldier watches it closely, intently, gripping the knife handle tighter.

There’s still glowing shapes beneath the water, moving, shifting. It- the man stops rising out of the water, the water lapping gently just below his collarbones, and the glow disappears as quickly as the construction lights had.

They stare at each other.

“What are you,” The Soldier orders.

The man stares at him for another minute, eyes shifting, slowly taking him in, and then he sinks back down into the water quicker than he rose and- disappears.

The Soldier, asset, Barnes all watch the shifting surface, but the movements go back to the way they were and the glow doesn’t come back.

\--

He returns to the Tower and the bathtub again. It takes some time, playing what happened over and over in its mind, but it does sleep. It wakes with a sharp jerk at some point, respiration elevated and heart pounding and has to slow it down. It sits up, rubber soles of its boots squeaking quietly against the shiny, off-white of the tub as it shifts and puts its back to the side, against the wall, pulling its knees up.

Wilson does not come by, but the voice in the ceiling writes on the wall that Stark wants to see him, then doesn’t, then does again, then doesn’t again. Barnes stares at the changing text before it finally settles on something for longer than ten seconds.

‘ _Mr. Stark has learned the truth of his parents death_.’

Barnes keeps staring.

‘ _Captain Wilson is at the door_.’

There’s distant knocking.

The Soldier gets out of the tub and answers the door, almost like a normal person.

It fits strangely, like a skin not quite made for him.

“It was in the Hydra files Romanoff leaked on the internet,” Wilson says, standing in the doorway. 

The red woman from the defunct river dam where his failed mission was recouping.

It backs up and Wilson slowly steps inside. The asset moves to put the long, dark blue couch between him and Wilson’s troubled expression and grave tone.

“Stark’s been going through it,” Wilson continues, “Found out- you killed his parents in ‘91.”

Barnes lets his eyes go just a little unfocused for a moment while he thinks, asking, “Names?”

“Howard and Maria Stark,” Wilson answers, expression tight, “It was on a backroad highway in December, 91.”

The Soldier’s lips curve down a little. He gets a flash of white hair and stark, cutting black shadows, the smell of motor oil and engine smoke and cold and dirt.

“Do you remember anything?” Wilson asks quietly after a minute.

There’s a flicker of a face, some strange meld of old and young that doesn’t make sense. “Nothing,” the asset answers, focusing back on Wilson.

Wilson nods slowly. “Just...avoid Stark for a while. He needs time to process everything and he’s not always good to be around at the start of it. It’s been a long road for him.”

That is easy enough to do, unless Stark comes looking for him.

\--

He returns to the water again that night, the same spot as last, a better place to be than in a Tower with someone who might want to kill him, or might not. He doesn’t know, and that puts him on edge, so he’s here. It takes a few hours, but the water eventually changes course and while the glow doesn’t appear this time, the man’s head slowly rises out of the dark depth, his dark hair, his long nose, his pointed ears, his sharp, slitted blue eyes. They are...strange, alien, but maybe that is why they are so capturing.

“What are you,” the Soldier repeats from last time.

The man sinks an inch, then slowly raises his arm. The Soldier tenses, then blinks slowly when he realizes the man is offering him a...rock? It has carved, swirl designs in its sleek black surface, and jagged edges, but it shines smooth like black glass.

The Soldier’s eyes shift from it to the man, to the rock, then back again. “What is it?” he asks warily.

The man tilts his head a fraction and the Soldier shifts just as much, uneasily. It feels like there’s a weight to this moment, like it’s...important. He fights with itself for a minute, going over counterattack strategies if the man attacks and this is a ploy, what it would do with the rock if it had it, if it’s a bomb or some other device, if this man- creature was sent by Hydra or the Avengers or someone else-

The man’s hand starts to lower and something in its chest gives a jolt, has him darting his hand out and taking the rock in a flash. He stills and tenses, eyes widened a fraction-

But nothing happens. The rock doesn’t explode, his left hand doesn’t feel any vibrations or signals, the plates still whir and function, the man-creature doesn’t attack. It’s just...a rock.

He looks down at it after a moment of watching the...man-creature, watches the moonlight gently hit and reflect off the hard edges and carved in curves-

A quiet splash catches his attention and he looks up just in time to see the man’s slightly smiling eyes sink below the water with the rest of his head.

The Soldier stares at the spot for five minutes, and when nothing happens, he gets up and picks his way back to the Tower. When he’s finally in the tub in the apartment, alone in the quiet, he takes the rock out of his pocket and looks at it in the dark. It almost shines, even then. He switches it to his right hand and it’s cool and smooth, so smooth he almost doesn’t feel it. He presses the pad of his thumb to one of the jagged edges, smooths it over and feels the carved in grooves. His lips curl up, just a little, and he stills, reaches up to touch them.

\-----

“You know, not that I don’t dig the hardcore, rocker, bondage look, but what do you think about clothes and showers? And probably food.”

Wilson is here again.

Barnes looks down at himself at Wilson’s raised eyebrows. “I am in need of some maintenance,” he acknowledges, “Hydra used a hard spray hose and a tube up my nose.” 

Wilson cringes a little and then gestures towards the bathroom. “No hose, no tube. Your kitchen should be fully stocked with liquids, to start with, then solids, and the shower has five kinds of water pressure with just as many shower heads and even more temperature settings. Sounds like overkill, but trust me, worth it. Or you could try a bath. There’s bubble stuff under the sink if you’re feelin’ it.”

Barnes glances towards the bathroom in thought.

\--

He slowly sinks down into the bubble water, feeling-...something he doesn’t quite understand. He sinks a little lower, drawing a finger through the bubbles. They prickle, almost, against his skin. He can feel them popping gently against the pad of his finger.

He looks over at the rock sitting on the edge of the tub, watches the low light catch the edge and slant down the angled side.

He slouches down just a little more, and dares to rest the back of his head against the smooth tub. 

His stomach has been gradually cramping; he requires sustenance to maintain optimal functioning, but that can come after. For now, this feels...

\--

The elevator doors quietly slide open and he steps out, slanting his eyes around and taking in the space. The parking garage is quiet, but cavernous, and he keeps his steps silent as he steps out onto the cement.

“Heading out?”

The doors slide shut behind him as his eyes jump up to the stone banisters built into the ceiling.

Barton shifts into view out of the darkest shadows, perched up high. “Need backup?”

“No,” the Soldier answers blankly.

Barton cocks his head, forearm resting on his raised knee. “You know they could be tracking your arm, right?”

“Yes,” the Soldier answers.

Barton cocks his head the other way, like a bird. “Do you want to go back to them?” he asks, open and curious over something quieter, at least the Soldier thinks. It’s difficult to tell the nuance of a voice and face.

The Soldier doesn’t have to think about the answer. “Sometimes.”

“But you haven’t yet,” Barton says.

“No,” he agrees. Because he could have dozens of times now, but instead he is once again sneaking out of the Tower like a child to see the mysterious man-creature who- gave him a gift at the water.

It is foolish, but…

It keeps itself from eagerly shifting in place.

Barton slinks over to the side of the beam and drops down, landing smooth as a cat, the sound echoing briefly throughout the parking garage. “You can’t go back to Hydra without going up against me in the shooting range first. Understand?” he asks, expression serious.

The Soldier studies him. “Understood,” Barnes replies.

Barton nods, lips curling up a fraction, and heads back inside the elevator. The Soldier listens for five minutes to make sure he’s alone before leaving.

\--

He keeps his steps quiet on the grass, the patches of dirt, following the sound of the water gently lapping the shore. He stops next to the tree he’s been using for cover.

The construction crew is still going. The man-creature hasn’t shown up until after they’ve left, so he settles in to wait.

He listens to the water and the distant machinery, the even more distant, faint sound of the occasional vehicle passing by, thumbing the smooth sides of the rock in his pocket. An hour goes by, two. The construction crew stops, the lights go out. He finds himself looking forward to-

A sharp pain in the back of his thigh has him moving, leaping straight up into the tree branches and catching itself, pulling itself up. It pauses just long enough to pull the dart out and then jumps towards the faint sound of bushes rustling. It lands on three men, lifts one as cover for the darts fired at it with barely a whistle of sound while it steals a gun, taking out three more with tranquilizers. It scouts in seconds around the body. Six targets in front-

A bush shifts behind it and it whips around, firing. Three targets. Only one dart comes out.

It throws the gun aside and-

There’s a _rush_ of sound, like a wave crashing into rock and all the leaves whispering in a cacophony at once in the dark. Men scream while it lunges at the two left in front of it, movements slowed but enough. After, it turns-

There’s a man- half of a man almost floating in the dark, long wet hair flat against his skin, ripping a throat out with one hand and bending a rifle barrel with the other while black... _tendrils_ , whose edges shine wet when they catch any light, shift, coil, lash out at the last agent, coil tight around his neck and crush it before dropping the twitching body to the grass with a _rustle-thud_.

The Soldier staggers and drops to one knee, and the man-creature turns, looking down at it. The Soldier goes down on the other knee and the creature edges closer, stilling at a look. The tendrils seem to writhe anxiously before a few slowly snake forward, stilling every time the Soldier looks at the creature, at them, but they creep inexorably closer until they touch. They are... _part_ of the man...creature... _thing_. Did Hydra make this creature too? It looks like the symbol.

It hurts to look at, too much and too strange all at once, vertigo hitting when one of the tendrils touches its cheek, the weight of three more on its thighs and waist. It’s too much-

It twitches away from the one on its cheek and the tendril falls away almost like a dead weight, the rest slithering off with it back across the grass. The Soldier squeezes its eyes shut hard, trying to suppress a shudder and the vertigo. He hears movement, leaves rustling-

“Wait,” he says, not sure why, just that there’s something pressing at his chest, a pressure, a need to-

The sounds stop. He opens his mouth- but it doesn’t know what to say, what the rising, increasing, urgent feeling in its chest _means_.

It closes its mouth. The sounds start again after a minute, getting further away until it hears the quiet splashing of water, keeping its eyes down on the grass. That makes its head spin less than looking up.

Time passes, it is not sure how much, but eventually it hears an- engine? It drags its head up and dark gold and red come into view between the trees, human form glittering under the stars. Iron Man drops down, landing and denting into the grass and dirt with a heavy _clunk-thunk_ seven feet away. The suit of armor shifts like it’s taking in the scene before the glowing white eyes, stark in the dark, seem to settle on it. “ _Rough night?_ ” Stark’s voice comes from the suit’s speakers.

It stares up at the suit, head still swimming.

“ _Octopus party?_ ”

It blinks slowly, hard, shaking its head and stilling when that just makes its vision worse. “Not octopus.”

“ _You’re right. They’re more like squids_ ,” Stark replies.

It’s quiet, just gently lapping water and a faint hum coming from the armor while the faceplate stares down at him. He wonders, for a moment, if the creature from the water is still close by, if it is watching them.

“ _These guys made you kill my parents_ ,” Stark says.

It blinks again, brows slowly drawing down together.

“ _Not- these guys, but-_ ” A _sigh_ through the speakers. 

_Quiet._

_“I’m still-...overwhelmingly **everything** at you, but I know you-...It wasn’t your choice_.”

The asset stares.

The glowing white eyes stare back. “ _I read your file too_.”

It stares up at the white eyes, then down at the grass. 

There’s something-...it conflicts with his programming. 

“Howard,” he croaks brokenly, with a voice that isn’t quite its. The armor shifts and it hangs its head, bangs hiding its face while it stares down at the dirt patch in front of it.

The deja vu again, but this time with images, two faces overlapped, one old and one young. The same-

“ _You wanna keep it?_ ”

It stills, gaze going unfocused.

_A man looks back over his shoulder at it, fiddling with something on a work table, side lamp washing the worn wood bright and making the metal pieces scattered along the table shine._

_It lifts the blue coat off the hook, both sets of fingers feeling over the thick material. It holds the coat up to its chest then raises an eyebrow at the man, whose mustache gives a twitch._

_“What? A guy can’t buy a present for his best lab pal?”_

_“I thought it was **yours?** ” comes out of its mouth with an accent._

_“Eh, you weren’t buying that.”_

_It’s lips curve up and it pulls the coat on in one smooth motion, sliding its arm through the other sleeve and then patting at the sides. “I can’t take this Howard,” it says, looking back up, “It’s too nice.”_

_“You’re going back out on the front lines where you and the guys have been helping to save **all** our asses. **Take the damn coat, Barnes.** ”_

_“Well, when you put it like that,” it sighs, then mock-grumbles, “ **Sir, yessir.** ”_

“ _-oo-hoo? Earth to Robocop?_ ”

It jerks his head up a little, face wet and chest constricting, throat tight. It sucks in a shaky breath.

“ _Uh…_ ” Stark trails off, “ _Wow. Okay. I do not know how to handle this. **Barton!**_ ”

“Coming, coming,” comes Barton’s voice, getting closer with a few bush rustles, “Had to check the whole area.” Footsteps stop and it sucks in another shaky breath, more heat slipping down its cheeks. “Geeze,” Barton says softly, “What the hell did they do? What the hell did _you_ do?”

“ _Nothing!_ ” Stark replies quickly.

There’s a brief silence and then Barton crouches down into the top of its field of vision.

“ _Okay, I might have...mentioned my old man_ ,” Stark says, breaking the silence, “ _But mentioning him doesn’t usually have this effect!_ ”

“He’s a traumatized war vet,” Barton replies, voice angled away before it comes back towards it, softening, “Hey, there, Barnes? Soldier? Can you hear me?”

It slowly drags its eyes up, vision blurry, but different from any drugs.

“They must’ve dosed you,” Barton says, concerned brown eyes swimming into view, “Hey, there. Can you move?”

It tries to check his systems, sniffling quietly. He nods slowly.

“ _...I can’t believe I think he’s adorable right now_ ,” Stark says.

“You and me both,” Barton quietly quips with a glance back over his shoulder, gaze shifting back to it. “Come on, let’s get up.”

Barton slowly stands and the Soldier tries to follow. It struggles a little before it finally manages, staggering a bit on its feet.

“Need help walking?” Barton asks, voice still soft, unlike any of it’s other handl- No. Barton is not a handler, and the Soldier didn’t think he was cruel. But there were people in Hydra that didn’t look cruel, too.

It tries taking a step, then another, manages three shaky ones so it keeps going, slowly following Barton through the trees.

“ _We’ll take care of this_ ,” Stark says, bending down to grab a body while Romanoff appears through the darkness of the trees, passing them silently with a slightly softened glance its way.

The Soldier uses her passing as an excuse to look back over his shoulder, first at the bodies, then at the water beyond.

\--

When they get back to the Tower, Wilson is still on a mission with Thor, the Asgardian, so the Soldier quietly goes to its apartment and curls up in the tub. It finally lets himself slip his hand in his pocket and thumbs the rock, closing its eyes. 

The man-creature. Half of his body was...hard to look at, black and slick and roiling. He killed the agents that came for him, then...touched him, cold and wet. He couldn’t handle the sensation then, but thinking about it now, slowly burning through the drugs in its system, it felt...gentle, careful, inquiring.

Its brows draw together a little.

No one is ever gentle with it unless they are about to be cruel.

\--

_A hand smooths back his bangs, a gentle touch, but not a woman’s. The fingers are longer, a little knobby, like the owner is still growing into them. There are no words, just an orange-pink sunset and blue eyes, not like the sky, but like the water._

_There’s another gentle touch to the back of his hand, and then the man (boy?) is pointing at the sunset with, “Have you seen these colors?” a deeper voice than his own. He’s not sure how he knows this, but he does._

_He nods and the man-boy-somewhere in between smiles. His hair is wet and dark in the dimming light, and reaches just past his bare shoulders. He doesn’t ever come out of the water. Bucky knows this like he knows the boy’s voice, but_ -

His eyes snap open and he stares into the pitch black, curled up on his right side in-

In the tub. In the Tower.

His heart is not beating quick, there is barely any adrenaline, he is just-

He slides his hand down into his pocket and finds the rock, holds it gently between his metal fingers.

 _Did I know him?_ he thinks.

\-----

A knock draws his attention and he flips down out of his handstand-split, cautiously approaching the door.

“It’s Wilson,” comes Wilson’s voice from the other side.

He cracks it open, waiting a few moments before risking a peek through the gap.

“Hey, man,” Wilson says, because it is Wilson. He is in gray sweatpants and a black tank top, a white bandage wrapped around both forearms, stark and bright, faintly textured against his dark, smooth skin.

Barnes opens the door a little wider and steps back. Wilson takes the invitation and slowly steps inside.

“I heard you had a rough night so I thought I’d stop by, see how you were doing,” Wilson says.

Instead of asking Jarvis, it notes, which makes it wary, even though the Barnes part is far less suspicious. “You just got back?” he hazards.

Wilson smiles and holds up his bandaged forearms, making his movements obvious. “These give it away?”

Barnes inclines his head, the question pressing at his tongue.

“Chemical burns,” Wilson explains when he can’t make the question pass his teeth, lowering his arms, “Some new group called A.I.M. _reeeeally_ loves their chemicals.” Wilson makes a face.

“Yay,” Barnes replies flatly. Maybe too flatly, since Wilson is now just staring at him. He tries not to shift in place.

“You just made a joke,” Wilson says slowly, expression morphing like dawn slowly rising over the horizon. He’s starting to look about as radiant, too. It’s almost too painful to look at.

It must be making a face of its own now enough, because Wilson clears his throat and goes back to more casual.

“It’s a good thing,” he reassures.

Barnes nods a little, not entirely sure, and glances away briefly, warring with himself. “...I had a dream,” he eventually decides - _decides_ \- to say.

“A dream?” Wilson asks, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. The Soldier tenses slightly and Wilson uncrosses them, expression open.

“There was…” Barnes trails off, _remembering_ , “A boy...or man, with blue eyes. A sunset.” He focuses his gaze back on Wilson, frowning a little. “He touched me gently.”

Wilson’s eyebrows bounce up a bit, but the biggest movement is his head tilt. “What do you think it was? Memory, or just a dream?”

“It felt…” Barnes says slowly, taking a few moments to think it over, even though he’s been thinking it over since last night. Wilson is still patient, the whole time, doesn’t change his stance or get annoyed at his taking time. “It felt like a...memory,” Barnes hazards. It’d had a grounding quality, just enough to feel real. But is it real? Hydra could have put it there. It could be part of a trigger or failsafe it doesn’t know, maybe false memories from a forgotten mission.

...But the boy-man looked a lot like the man-creature. Maybe it was just a dream.

But he won’t tell Wilson about the creature, so he doesn’t say that. He barely knows anything about the man-creature himself.

He shrugs, just to erase his words a little.

“Well, if you dream a name, let me know. We can try to look for him,” Wilson replies with an easy smile.

The asset nods and then Wilson’s stills, face scrunching up in something like defiance, and then he yawns, big and loud, blinking quickly after. 

“I gotta get some sleep,” he says. The asset nods again and Wilson smiles tiredly, heading for the door. “I’ll see you later?” 

Barnes nods and Wilson goes, door quietly clicking shut behind him. It leaves Barnes to his thoughts, and doesn’t realize he’s slipped his hand into his pocket until he feels the smooth edge of the rock against the pad of his thumb.

\--

Sam gets his eyes back open when the elevator stops later than it’s supposed to, and isn’t surprised to step out and find the team at the long communal table. He steps up and pulls out a chair, and drops (just a little) into the seat at the head of the table.

“So...thoughts?” Stark asks at the opposite end.

“Well, I just got back from a thirty hour mission with two naps, so I’m tired,” Sam replies.

Stark purses his lips.

Sam sighs. “I think he’s workin’ on it.”

“Being ‘Barnes’ or a person in general?” Stark asks.

“It’s not that simple, Tony,” Romanoff calmly cuts in.

Stark looks a little chastised at that, and changes the subject. “So. Hydra. I need to scan him.” He looks to Romanoff who stares steadily back, Barton, who raises both eyebrows, caught in the middle of drinking his coffee, Bruce, who is gazing steadily into his tea, and Sam, who can’t help yawning (and maybe enjoying the timing just a little too much). Tony rolls his eyes. “Jarvis?”

“ _I am currently scanning all local and available international databases for any signs and information relating to Ms. Romanoff’s data dump and the weapons and gear gathered from last night’s attack on Sergeant Barnes_.”

Tony points up at the ceiling with a raised brow.

“Sounds like you got it covered for the next fourteen hours,” Sam yawns again, pushing himself up to his feet.

“But he could turncoat!” Tony lets out, “...Again. Triplecoat?”

“He could,” Sam agress, pushing in his chair, “But I think he’s worth the risk. He’s trying, and we owe it to him. Do any of you want him out?” he asks, because they are a team, and if one of them isn’t comfortable, they need to figure out what to do about it.

The table is quiet, and Sam waits a few moments before nodding.

“Now if you’ll all excuse me, I have a very long, very overdo date with my bed,” he says, turning and heading back for the elevator.

\-----

Barnes goes out again, keeps an eye and ear on his surroundings as he heads back down to the tree by the water, a landmark in the dark. He palms the rock and watches the gently lapping waves to the distant sounds of the construction work. After a few minutes, a restlessness in the water catches his attention and its gaze focuses.

The man surfaces, stopping at his collarbones above the water. He tilts his head and starts moving through the current and the Soldier slowly follows, tracking him up the perimeter. The man-creature stops at the end tip of land just before the ocean. It is vast and glittering and dark in the night.

“Do you know me?” Barnes eventually asks.

The man-creature’s gaze does something...it can’t read, then sharpens. He doesn’t answer, but the look is almost answer enough.

“I think you were in my dream,” Barnes says softer.

The man-creature watches him closely, still silent as he has been. It feels like he is waiting for something.

\-----

The Soldier goes out again the next night, guard up as it makes its way through the trees to the tip of the land. The man-creature still doesn’t talk, but the Soldier sits in the grass near the water and they...share the quiet, too far up for the construction sounds to disrupt it.

\-----

He strips his gear and the uniform off in the morning next to the tub, searches through the bedroom drawers and finds clothes, checking them for devices. Then, he tries...the shower. It makes him jolt at first, and then he...melts.

He sits on the floor for a time in the warmth with his head tilted back.

He puts the different clothes on after, then does his best to clean his knives with the resources he has on hand.

\-----

Barton invites him to the shooting range. 

Wilson asks if he wants to pick different clothes and...maintenance things. 

It _feels_ like...it shouldn’t, but the Barnes side picks jeans and combat boots, and the Soldier picks knife polish (Wilson will not let it buy weapons and the ones in the armory are coded to the floor. It will have to make do with its three knives for now).

It goes to the water at night in its uniform and gear, and when it gets back to the apartment...changes, and curls up in the tub. It _dreams_.

\-----

He goes to the water in a long sleeved, Stark Industries shirt and jeans, one knife in his right boot, another in his back pocket, and the last in his front pocket. He feels...vulnerable, but not completely.

Wilson took his uniform ‘to be cleaned’.

He sits at the water in the grass and waits. After ten minutes, the man-creature rises above it and looks him over, then smiles. Barnes’ lips twitch up back. “I had another dream,” he says, “I think I like ice cream.”

The man-creature inclines his head and then tilts it, and Barnes is surprised to find he can read it.

“I haven’t tried it yet. Wilson says I can have nearly anything, but that is...too much.” He doesn’t know how to put that feeling into words. It is just a great swelling that verges on becoming a loud rush in his ears, too much and too big an idea to comprehend.

The man-creature turns a little and looks out at the ocean then back.

“You have everything,” Barnes says. The man-creature stares at him a long moment, and Barnes looks back out at the water.

They spend forty minutes that way, quietly watching the waves, listening to the gentle slosh of the water and crickets in the quiet. It’s...it’s peaceful, another feeling that is too great and too big to comprehend, but quieter, like the nights they share. A quiet, gentle smothering.

There’s a faint rustle and a sharp, small sting at the back of his neck before he can react. He knows what it is before he even reaches up and yanks the dart out, but another hits him mid-spin and then a third, and he goes down face first in the dirt. He hears water crash violently and surprised sounds and shouts, but his vision blackens darker than the shifting surface of the ocean and the sounds distort like they’re underwater, and he is swept out to sea.


	2. You are the only thing I’ve ever truly known

He becomes aware of his hands first, the hard texture beneath them, keeps its body still while its systems slowly come online. It’s sitting in a hard chair, can smell concrete, faint, stale sweat, metal and rubber, rust and old blood. Familiar smells, smells that bring flashes of the same: the Chair, voices, maintenance, technicians, punishment, orders, but this chair feels different from the Chair, wider beneath it, softer in a few places. There are straps over its wrists and ankles. Its knives have been removed.

“ _Hear about the creature S.T.R.I.K.E. brought in?_ ” comes a distant, getting closer.

“ _Yeah. Heard they’re doing tests on it. Wonder if this means mermaids are real_ ,” comes another.

“ _It’s a strange fuckin’ world.”_

_“And the asset?”_

_“They tranq’d it out cold. Gonna wipe it and put it in the freezer. No telling what the Avengers did to it.”_

_“Amen to that. We takin’ the crea-...oo-..._ ”

The voices trail off out of its hearing range but it is surprised it could hear them at all over the sound of its rapid heart.

‘ _Creature_ ’.

They caught him.

It needs to find him and get him away from here.

It’s easier to focus on that than its own situation. Hydra has it, it should feel...accomplished, like it is where it should be, and yet…

It opens its eyes and takes in the empty room, the old blood stains on the floor and, when it lifts its head, on the wall. 

It draws its head back, looking up.

The ceiling, as well.

There’s a cryotube against the wall, tubes spilling it around it like the man-creature’s tentacles, lab equipment next to that. It pulls against the restraints. The right arm is still weak and the left doesn’t move. The straps don’t give.

It tries again, and again, and _again_ , feels its strength level changing, coming back-

Try six and the right arm strap finally snaps. It quickly gets the other unbuckled, along with the two around its ankles, keeping an ear out for anyone approaching all the while. It feels around along its left arm, searching for the cause of the immobility. After some contorting, it feels a small, circular device directly behind its shoulder. It has to stretches as far as it can, but eventually it catches the top and _yanks_ -

The device comes off with a small, electric _zap_ to its fingers and it looks it over while its left arm comes back on, panels shuddering and shifting one by one from shoulder to fingers. It crushes the device and stands, holding still a moment when it sways slightly. It looks around, walks over and grabs the metal saw off of the lab tray and goes over to the door, listening, then notices the camera up in the corner.

 _Failure_.

Barnes takes a breath and pulls the door open, stalking out into the hall. 

\--

“We closing in?” Sam asks from the back of the jet.

“Landing in ten, Cap,” Barton replies from the front.

Sam tightens his grip on the shield strap and looks over at Stark, who frowns down at a readout projection from his suit’s forearm.

\--

It slices the saw through another throat and ducks a baton, punching its left fist into the next agent’s chest. The agent’s eyes squeeze shut as he gags and goes flying and the Soldier kicks another agent into the opposite wall, hears his bones crack. The Soldier keeps running, looking for the man-creature.

Three halls and seven more agents later, it opens a door and jerks to a stop, barely takes a moment to take in the dark room and the blue glow coming from the tall, glass tank in the center before running in, taking down the surprised looking technicians before they can do more than gape. After all threats have been neutralized, it turns and slowly approaches the glass, staring up at the full creature for the first time.

He’s...big, _huge_. It was harder to tell when he came on land in the night to fight while it was drugged, but seeing him now, the creature’s tentacles are longer than he is with various, off-black scarring, the rest a deep, pitch black that fades up into pale skin at his hips. The tentacles drift and shift fluidly through the water, as graceful as dancers on land, more so. The man-creature’s hair is long, longer than his waist, drifting about even more fluidly than his tentacles, dark in the water except for where the lights above the tank catch the hues and light all the edges up white gold. His eyes are still slitted, the blue from the lights making them a deep, alien hue, piercing as they stare down at it, and there are scars across his skin too. Not as many as its own, but most are big or long: one diagonal across his chest, left forearm, another sloping down his left hip from around his back, and other, various smaller ones.

The Soldier stares another moment before snapping out of its trance and running to the control station, slamming the button to slide open the top of the tank just before it registers the sound of running bootsteps-

“ _Sputnik!_ ” a man shouts, and its body goes loose and falls, forehead hitting hard off the console on the way down while the saw clatters to the floor. Its gaze slowly clears and it stares blankly forward along the length of cement into the darkest shadows and hears slow, careful, rubber soles approaching. A boot nudges its side, repeats it harder, and then the person above it lets out a breath.

“Grab it, take it to the freezer,” the same voice says, “And get a scientist to deal with the squid.”

“Sir.”

A pair of steps quickly retreat while more steps move forward. Its arms are grabbed and it tries to move, but nothing is working. It is adrift inside its own head, watching the world through a hazy lense.

“I’m going to go report to the General,” the first voice says, “Keep watch on the asset. And for God’s sake, quit gawking at the _squid_.”

Someone shifts. “Yes, sir.”

Another pair of steps retreat and then it is quiet as they start dragging it out, legs sliding along the floor, but it can hear...something, something...slick and wet sliding. They can’t hear it, it slowly realizes. It gets closer, becomes many instead of few-

There’s a yell, muffled, and it’s dropped before there’s gunfire, cut off with another yell. It hears bodies drop, crumple to the floor like bags of sand, and then it feels shifting, writhing things on its legs, its torso, slowly moving up. There’s that sound again, like something quietly, wetly sliding along the floor, and then tentacles wrap around its chest and thighs and turn it over onto it’s back. It sees the man-creature’s face, large hands cupping its cheeks while concerned, slitted, electric blue eyes stare down at it.

 _It feels strange_ , it thinks distantly, to be held by tentacles. They are thick and strong, like columns of muscle. It can feel the suckers shift its clothes slightly when they snag gently on the folds, the water soaking through the material down to its skin.

The man-creature keeps looking at it while his eyes move, taking in its face. The tentacles shift and slither separately like they each have a mind of their own, presumably looking for injury. The man-creature’s slitted eyes move back up to its. “Bucky,” he says, and it- strikes something deep down through the haze, like a bell, makes the Soldier’s brows barely twitch together, makes it want to ask what that means. “Can you hear me?” the man-creature asks. His voice is smooth and deep, and it makes the asset sink even though the feeling is lined with tension.

It tries to blink faster to answer, but it doesn’t work. Thumbs gently rub its cheeks above its growing facial hair. It is a vaguely familiar feeling, almost makes its stomach churn, but from the man-creature, it is more...soothing than dissociating.

“Bucky…” the man-creature softly repeats. It can’t recall being addressed this way, soft and with...longing.

There are more running steps, and then the tentacles tighten around it while new shadows stretch across the floor, the man-creatures eyes darting up while his expression hardens, more tentacles raising and stilling, poised to attack.

“ _What the hell is_ -” Stark’s voice starts through what sound like his armor’s speakers.

“Uh.” Barton. “Well, I didn’t see this coming.”

The sound of a bowstring pulling tighter. Its heart beats a fraction harder.

“ _Cap, we found Barnes, but he’s possibly being held by a Hydra sea monster. Yes, you heard me right. Room C-2. Roger. We’ll wait. It doesn’t seem to be attacking_.”

The Soldier can hear the hum of Stark’s suit, and then it sees a gradual, blue glow coming from below it, around it, sees bright rings of it on the ends of the tentacles raised either side of the man-creature. It shifts its gaze up and finds the man-creature’s eyes glowing too.

“ _Uh...is it threatening us? I feel like it’s threatening us. We won’t let you eat our new roommate_.” Stark.

“He did just get here.” Barton.

“ _Yeah!_ ”

The glow slowly fades from the man-creature’s eyes (and everywhere else), but then it’s back with the sound of more running steps-

“What’s- _Oh_.” Wilson, while the steps cease, “... _Damn. Okay_.” The sound of metal quietly magnetizing to metal. “My name’s Sam Wilson,” Wilson starts slowly, “Do you...know English?”

“ _Stay there_ ,” the man-creature growls low in warning, sharp fangs bared.

“Okay,” Wilson says easily, “So you _do_ know English?”

“I know many languages,” the man-creature says low after a moment, tentacles coiling just a little tighter around the Soldier.

“...Wow. Okay. So...what are you planning to do with him?”

“Protect,” the man-creature answers.

“From us?” Wilson asks, “Because we’re the good guys. He’s been living with us for the past week.”

“He is vulnerable now,” the man-creature says, “You will stay away until he is capable of defense.”

“How do we know we can trust you not to do the same thing?” Romanoff.

The man-creature’s eyes shift slightly at the sound of her voice. “I would never intentionally harm him.”

“You say that, but we have no proof,” Romanoff counters.

“He does,” the man-creature replies, shifting the Soldier slightly.

“ _Barnes? What- Oh my god_ ,” Stark says, “ _He’s been seeing **you. That’s** where he sneaks off to at night. I thought he was just going through a rebellious phase_.”

The man-creature says nothing.

“You got a name?” Wilson asks.

The man-creature still says nothing, tentacles tightening a fraction around the Soldier.

\--

After four hours of a standoff, the Soldier finally starts to regain its functions. First the haze gradually clears, then it can do more than twitch its fingers, can curl them, rotate its wrists, turn its head. The man-creature is there, watching it, hands back on its cheeks.

“You could speak,” the Soldier says quietly.

The man-creature’s expression tightens a little, and his hands slowly slide away.

“Who are you?” the Soldier asks.

The man-creature continues watching him. “I’m waiting.”

They stare at one another.

Someone clears their throat.

“ _Okay. I’m ready to blow this place, literally, and order some expensive takeout. Anyone with me?_ ” Stark asks.

“I am,” Barton replies, “But what about…”

The tentacles slowly uncoil from around it almost reluctantly. Barnes sits up and mentally checks himself. He feels fine again, minus the ignorable discomfort in its stomach. He looks over at the man-creature. “What will you do?”

The man-creature looks at him, glances briefly over at the Avengers, then back again, opens his mouth-

“ _You know…I have seven indoor pools and one on the roof_ ,” Stark says, drawing both their eyes. The armor suit shrugs, layers of metal shifting with barely a sound. “ _Could switch out the chlorine for fresh or salt water or whatever your biology requires. Could have it done in an hour._ ”

Romanoff slants a look at Stark while Barton’s eyebrows climb, and Wilson looks...somewhere near overwhelmed, like he’s trying to process living in a building with a half-squid man.

Barnes looks back to the man-creature, who looks down, brows drawn together in thought, looking torn, then looks back up at him. Barnes finds...he wants the man-creature to come. They’ve never spoken before today, not once in the past week and a half, but they’ve shared silence, and quiet, and it’s the most...calming either of those have ever been. It’s different from the kind of quiet or silence his mind gets before a mission or on his way to one, less focus and drifting and more...like the gentle waves that lapped the shore near where he usually sits, like the slow way the moon moves across the starry sky, unhurried and seemingly endless until the sun starts to rise. Maybe if the man-creature is closer, the sun never has to.

But that is a...selfish thing, and he doesn’t want to risk the man-creature’s safety more than he already has, risk losing their connection, even though maintaining it is risking it further. He should tell the creature to go, but the words still in his chest.

“The decision is yours,” he says, quiet but firm, because he is making his _own_ decisions now.

The man-creature’s expression does something small and unreadable, and then he nods slowly.

“You’re coming?” Wilson asks, almost strained.

The man-creature nods again, more firmly this time, and something...unspools in Barnes’ chest, while also winding tight.

“Okay. New half-squid roommate,” Barton says, “But how are we going to _get_ him there?”

Stark’s faceplate lifts just so he can give Barton a _look_. “I’m rich.”

\--

Barnes watches the tub, narrowing his eyes slightly when the water edges closer to the top on a turn of the jet.

“I can’t believe this is my life,” Wilson says to the jet at large.

“You and me both,” Barton replies much lighter.

The man-creature keeps still in the water, lower half submerged and tentacles barely moving. The rest of the ride is smooth, even the landing, but Barnes keeps an eye on the water in the tub to make sure it doesn’t spill over, not that he could do much about it if it did.

The upper twenty floors of the Tower have been cleared and the pool on the seventy-fifth floor has been changed to saltwater, according to Stark, so they wheel the creature there (with Barnes pushing, because he has the strength and the man-creature’s tentacles had slapped away Stark’s attempt to get behind him). The pool is huge, when they get to it, takes up nearly the whole floor. Barnes wheels the man-creature to its edge and his tentacles coil beneath him and push him up and over the lip of the tub. He practically slides into the pool like water with barely a sound, just a quiet splash and slosh against the pool’s edge.

“So...do you have any nutritional requirements we should know about?” Stark asks, faceplate up. He hasn’t changed out of his armor yet, which is smart. For all their pretense, the Avengers are on edge.

“Raw seafood,” the man-creature answers, low and quiet as he sinks down, almost blending in amongst the dark floor tiles.

“And a name to call you by!?” Stark tries, but the man-creature’s head is already below the water.

The Avengers watch his large, black shape glide through the water, distinguishable enough against the dark tiles to watch his tentacles bunch up beneath him and then shoot back, propelling him faster than his large appearance would suggest. Barnes watches his long hair shift with the motions, billow up and fan out before smoothing back in a stream as he moves. It’s strange to watch him, surreal and confusing even now, like his mind doesn’t want to process the two different halves of him, but mostly the smooth glide and speed itself are...hypnotic.

The others slowly trickle out one by one, first Stark, muttering to himself about Banner, then Barton with a backwards glance, followed by Romanoff with her brows drawn slightly together, and lastly Wilson, eyebrows high and expression still a little dazed. 

Then the Soldier is alone.

He stays to watch for a few minutes as the morning gray sky slowly lightens out the floor to ceiling windows in his periphery, the size of them keeping him on edge. When he starts to feel...uncertain, he turns to leave as well. Halfway to the elevator a soft ripple of sound catches his attention and he stops and looks over to find the man-creatures eyes just above the water, focused on him. They stare at one another. They’ve been doing that a lot. There’s questions it- _he_ wants to ask, but so far, he’s rarely gotten any answers. It is...frustrating.

“You called me ‘Bucky’,” he says.

The man-creatures eyes sharpen focus.

“Who is Bucky?” he asks.

The man-creature looks away, so he tries:

“Who _was_ Bucky?”

The man-creature doesn’t look back, and Barnes feels- annoyance. No, that’s not quite right. It’s the frustration. It is bubbling and persistent, and after another minute of the gently lapping water against the sides of the pool, he takes a step towards the elevator-

“Bucky…”

He stops, stills, looks back. The man-creature’s eyes are on him again, bottom of his chin just barely dipped down into the water.

“...liked sunsets and ice cream,” the man-creature finishes.

Barnes turns and slowly steps closer to the water. It occurs to him then that he’s not afraid, or wary, just cautious. He’s felt a minimal of the tentacle’s strength, has seen the man-creature’s hands crush a throat as easily as his own can, but that violence has never been directed at him, so far, only those after him. Hydra, ironically, given that the man-creature is half octopus. He can’t completely trust it, or what the man-creature told the Avengers in the base, that he is...protecting him? But he still... _feels_. It is dangerous, clouds his judgment.

“Was Bucky me?” he asks.

The man-creature doesn’t answer, still watching him.

“Why won’t you tell me?” he asks, _frustration_ seeping into his tone, fingers slowly curling.

The man-creature watches him a moment before slowly drifting a little closer, black tentacles shifting, almost writhing below the water’s surface. “What good would I do? Giving you facts when you need memories,” the man-creature says.

Barnes sits down cross-legged at the edge of the pool. “Facts might trigger memories.”

The man-creature looks up at him, watching silently. He drifts a little closer, and Barnes watches the now peaking morning light reflect off of the wet glint along the man-creatures crooked nose. He doesn’t say anything, and Barnes waits a minute more before making himself get up and head to the elevator. It might be...immature, to leave this way, but it is not feeling very mature.

Still, he’s the one that speaks this time, looking back over his shoulder as the elevator doors open. “Gentle sleep,” bubbles past his lips, from one of his dreams-

_A light kiss to his forehead. “Gentle sleep, B-”_

_His lips curve shyly back, cheeks warm. “Goodnight St-_ ”

The man-creature’s eyes widen and he pushes up a little more out of the water. “Gentle sleep,” he returns slowly, looks like he wants to say more- But his mouth closes and he sinks a little, and Barnes turns and steps into the elevator, only turning back around after the doors have closed.

\--

Romanoff keeps her steps quiet as she enters the room, glancing over the circle of holograms surrounding Stark and scanning their words. “Myths and legends,” she comments.

“Best place to look for bizarre, Urusula, sea monsters,” Stark quips back, flicking his fingers to scroll up a hologram readout. “Speaking of,” he adds, looking back over at her, “What do you think of our new, resident sea monster?”

“It’s reminiscent of Hydra and knows Barnes,” she replies.

“Both true. He- It-” he stops, “Do we call it ‘he’ or ‘it’? Both?” He turns around, not waiting for an answer, like she expected. “Whatever. The capture could’ve been a ploy to get him Tower access, so I’ve got J watching him and the floor is sealed when no one’s actively engaging him in something other than violent displays or monologues. Still want to snag a blood sample for Bruce, but that’ll wait. How’s our first refugee?”

“Growing,” Romanoff allows, “More than I expected.”

“Good? Bad?” Stark asks, flicking up another holoscreen.

“Undecided,” she settles on. Tony _tsks_ , but he’s always been impatient.

“Do you remember seeing anything like either of them during your stint in Mother Russia?” he asks, keeping his back to her in some show of either emotional avoidance or a misguided attempt to afford her some sort of privacy. “I read your leaked files.” Both, then.

“No,” she returns, “If there was anything like the creature in the Red Room, I was not privy to it.” Or she doesn’t remember, but she’s not laying that card on the table.

He waits a beat. “And Barnes?”

“A well kept secret,” she answers cryptically, scrolling through another holofile with her fingers.

“Doesn’t really answer the question, but I’ll let it drop for now,” Stark says, and her lips curl a little. “Mythical sea monsters and decades old assassins,” he muses, “Wouldn’t put it past them. How’s Fury? Still unreachable?”

“Just like he wants,” she replies easily, flicking a finger and spinning the holofile in circles, “What do you want to do about Hydra?”

“Take that up with our fearless leader. ...Unless you already did,” Tony returns.

“He wants to burn them out, but that’s a long, involved task. Harder than some of my deepest covers,” Natasha replies.

Tony looks back, raising a brow. “Only some?”

Her lips curve mysteriously and he decides to drop it for now.

“I’ve had J looking,” Tony says, “If the estimates and reports are right, with the help of the dumped S.H.I.E.L.D. files, it _is_ extensive...but someone’s gotta do it, might as well be us. Barnes _does_ need avenging.”

That surprises her. She thought he wouldn’t be so willing quite yet. “Should we invite him?” she tests.

Tony glances back again, eyes narrowed. “I see what you did there, flipping the questions onto me.”

Her smile curves up a little more

“And not just yet,” he continues, “We still need to scan Barnes proper and deal with him finding out about the bug you put on him, if he decides he really doesn’t appreciate it, and deal with any possible outstanding concerns, like his memory. And who knows what the sea monster is going to do when Barnes isn’t _here._ ”

“And trigger words,” Romanoff adds.

“Trigger words?” Tony asks, turning around, because _that_ deserves his full attention, “Is this a Russian spy thing or a Hydra spy thing? Do _you_ have trigger words?”

“I did,” she allows after a small pause, “If he has any, and I would assume he does, they are still active.”

“How did you dismantle yours?” Tony asks.

“Lots of therapy and Vodka,” she returns flatly.

He huffs. “Fine. Keep your secrets. But where do we start with him?”

“We will need help,” she answers, “A way to overwrite existing memories and associations.”

“...Wait,” Tony says, eyes lighting up, “I think I have the perfect thing.”

\-----

Stark opens the case and Barnes takes in the device. “It’s not finished yet, but it’s for Binarily Augment Retro Framing,” Stark explains.

“You called it ‘B.A.R.F.’?” Barton asks, frowning from Barnes’ other side.

Tony looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “The name’s also in progress,” he quips back, making a shooing motion with his hand. Barton gives him a dirty look.

“What will it do?” Barnes asks quietly, disrupting their...interaction.

“In theory? Which, let’s be honest, I’m making it so it’s going to work,” Stark starts, “It will project memories in which you can live out and alter events to repair a damaged psyche and help overcome past traumatic events.”

Barton’s eyebrows shoot up. “Sounds like it could also seriously bite you in the ass.”

“Always possible, given our lives,” Stark returns blithely. He looks over at Barnes. “So? Wanna give it a try when they’re finished?”

Barnes looks over the glasses and wires again. “...If it will help.”

“Alright then.” Stark claps his hands once, then closes the case.

\--

Barnes slowly sits down at the edge of the pool before tilting the tub on its side, dumping the colorful swirl of fish into the water. The man-creature streaks into view, going after them in a dark blur of darting tentacles and snatching fingers, chasing them doggedly. Barnes watches the bright, streaking points of color slowly disappear one by one (and sometimes by five).

After seven minutes, the man-creature finishes eating, small red clouds of blood dissipating in the water when he swims over. Barnes watches his head surface, their eyes meeting. 

If he does get his memories back, or at least some of them, will he see more of the younger man-creature? Learn his name? Maybe he didn’t even see the man-creature, maybe his brain just layered a younger version of the man-creature over whoever it actually was because he saw the man-creature first and it left an impression. Maybe this has all been a lie. Maybe it hasn’t. He doesn’t know what to think.

He was a person once, supposedly, before all this, but he doesn’t remember his mother’s face from memory, his sisters. He’d had them, looked _James Buchanan Barnes_ up on the internet and found them, but even seeing pictures did little to bring anything back. Why does he remember the man-creature and not them? They’re supposed to be important to him, aren’t they? Maybe he was never a person, even before he became what he is now.

He becomes aware that his gaze has dropped to the water and gone unfocused and blinks, looking back up at the man-creature’s face. “I agreed to do something that might get memories back,” he says.

The man-creature drifts closer, looking up at him.

“It’s what you want,” Barnes says.

The man-creature nods. “But is it what you want?”

Barnes watches him a moment, his slit, blue eyes, his long wet hair, the small scar on his upper lip that he can see now in the light. The fact that the man-creature is here at all. Is this all a trick? Is this all Hydra’s plan? To use him to get the man-creature into Avengers Tower? To get him back? He doesn’t know. There’s a monumental amount he _doesn’t know_. It was never a problem before. He’d only needed to know names, locations, coordinates, drop points. Not knowing anything else never mattered, nothing but the mission. Now everything...everything is so much more involved, convoluted and confusing, and he’s not sure he wants to keep doing it.

But, for now…

He nods once. “It is.” It is a new feeling, to be decisive about something that doesn’t involve hurting someone. He pauses, something occurring to him. “Were you looking for me?” The man-creature met him at the water, presumably pulled him from it after he fell from the helicarrier. Why was he in the river? It connects to the ocean, but if he’d lived there this whole time, S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra would have detected his presence at some point.

The man-creature stares at him. It is a tell in and of itself he has come to recognize. The man-creature drifts back and its heart beats harder, fears it said something it shouldn’t hav-

“Do you want to swim?” the man-creature asks.

It stills, then Barnes slowly relaxes. “Okay.” He stands, pulls his shirt up and off and lets it drop to the textured tile, unlaces his boots and pushes them and his socks off, then his pants, leaving it all in a pile. He crouches down, naked, and hops sideways into the pool with a splash. The water comes up to just below his chest and is...a little warmer than he was expecting.

The man-creature drifts nearby, and Barnes jumps slightly when he feels something firm and smooth brush his ankle, eyes darting down. He holds his breath and lowers his face just below the water, the distorted black tentacles becoming clear. One of them brushes his ankle again, flicking out of the way when he Barnes tries taking a slow step. He lifts his head and wipes the water down his face with a wet hand, looking up. The man-creature is watching him, lips faintly curled. “Do you feel that like with your fingers?” Barnes surprises himself with the question.

The man-creature cocks his head a little to the side. “I feel less, but still much. Taste.”

Barnes looks back down at the moving, distorted black shapes until they all shift as one and the man-creature moves away. His head sinks below the water and Barnes follows, diving under. His eyes catch on the tentacles again, watching them move, still...strange, almost disorienting to see them move, then drag his eyes up to find half a man emerge out of all the black, but he is slowly adjusting. He moves through the water smoothly, not as smoothly as the man-creature, but enough, and wonders for the first time if he knew how to swim before, and this well, or if Hydra programmed it all.

His eyes draw down when the man-creature circles around and comes in close, moving under him so they’re swimming facing, a long, half, darkly colored mirror seemingly from another world. Barnes can see the gills then, three slits on either side of the man-creature’s neck back and a little below his pointed ears, draws his eyes down and watches the light play across his pale skin, hit the edges and curves of his long scars. His hair is so...long, it’s mesmerizing to watch, especially when the light rays coming down through the water’s surface catch the gold in it and make it shimmer.

He goes back up for air after ten minutes, then dives back under again, eyes darting down when the end of a tentacle drags lightly along the bottom of his foot. He looks back up, blinking, and the man-creature’s lips curl a little again, hair billowing out. His own lips twitch and he is starting to feel oddly...lighter.

Barnes pulls himself up and out of the water after a while, long after his fingerpads have wrinkled. A tentacle lightly slides down the side of his calf in the water, not as shy as the last two times had felt. A couple more even join in, just lightly sliding against his skin. It feels strange, but kind of...good, too. They’re not as smooth as they look when they’re shiny and wet out of the water, but they’re smooth enough that the drag against his skin is minimal in the water, even the suction puckers.

They slide away and the man-creature slips back beneath the water. Barnes watches his shape move through the clear surface against the dark tile, and is dry by the time he puts his clothes back on and leaves.

\--

“Hey, there,” Wilson greets from in front of the apartment door where he’s been staying. Barnes pauses in the elevator. “I was just looking for you.”

“You didn’t ask Jarvis,” Barnes observes, slowly stepping out.

“Nah,” Wilson replies, “I like doing things the old fashioned way now and then to keep me on my toes.”

They lapse into silence, but Wilson doesn’t let it linger and breathe.

“I’ve been putting together some of your old things,” he starts, taking a couple measured steps closer, “Things that weren’t in the museum, with Stark’s help, in a couple ways. His father Howard had some of your things with his in storage, and I managed to get a hold of a couple of your journals. But only if you want them, when you’re ready.”

Barnes slips his hand in his pocket and thumbs the rock, pressing the pad of his thumb to a smooth side. “...Okay,” he replies.

“Okay,” Sam says easily, “Do you want me to bring them here?”

“Leave them at the door,” Barnes settles on, “I will...look at them.” Maybe. Not necessarily immediately. He does want to know more about his past, but suddenly having possible, tangible evidence of his past self is...daunting.

They lapse into quiet this time, but it feels...less, than the first.

Wilson blows out a breath, sliding his own hands into his pockets. “I still can’t believe there’s a half-octopus man in the pool a few stories above us,” he says, looking up, “I swear, ever since the Invasion things have been getting weirder and weirder.”

Barnes glances up at the ceiling with him, then back to Wilson.

“You seem to be handling it well,” Wilson observes with a small smile.

Barnes frowns a little in thought. “I was surprised,” he admits, “But…” He’s not sure how to tell Wilson how he views the world, that most people are already ghosts and anything else, everything else must be overcome. And that a creature from another world on this one doesn’t...make him feel that way, not as much as seeing another human does.

“Do you…” Wilson breaks the quiet again, drawing his attention back, “Want to hang out sometime? We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, just...I’d like to get to know you.”

Barnes quirks his lips on one side, faintly wry, though it doesn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know who that is.”

Wilson smiles again. “You will. I know you’ve already given a lot of it, but...give it more time. Even if you don’t remember anything from before, you’re still becoming someone _now_.”

Barnes’ lips even out again while he thinks that over, then eyes Wilson for a moment. “Why are you…” He has to swallow down the rising urge to retreat, submit to punishment for speaking out so thoughtlessly and forges on. “Why are you doing this for me? Because of who I was?”

Wilson rocks back on his heels a bit, doesn’t take his eyes off him, but his expression goes thoughtful. Barnes doesn’t quite think it’s to come up with a lie, but the Soldier has doubts. “It’s partly that,” Wilson starts, “You gave your life for this country, for all of us, you deserve to have someone in your corner to give you the chance and time you need to find yourself, and figure out where to go from here with it all and in this time period. But it’s not just that.”

Barnes waits, back straight and fingers loose at his sides.

Wilson looks at him, really looks at him, and Barnes holds very, very still.

“It’s also because you’re a person,” Wilson says simply, and Barnes blinks slowly, hiding his surprise behind the action, “You’re human, Barnes, and that chance and time and space? That’s the very _least_ you deserve. You need space? You got it. Time? Someone to talk to or at? Name it. Human decency is the very least you’re owed, that everyone is, because you’re human.”

Barnes stares and Wilson doesn’t shy away from it, holds his gaze.

“Seventy years is a long time,” Wilson says softer, but no less direct, no less certain, “It’s long past time to come home.”

Barnes blinks, because that hits him, somewhere deep he can’t name. It makes the world almost spin for a few moments, almost makes the ground feel like quicksand, a confusing jumble of feelings in his chest and faint, chaotic thoughts in his head like butterflies fluttering around in a glass jar. It doesn’t knock him down, but it does echoes somewhere in the cavern of his ribcage, knocks gently on his ribs, and it’s that feeling that has his throat going a little tight. He still doesn’t feel quite ‘human’ enough to deserve that kind of consideration, but it feels like...maybe he once did.

He’s not sure what to say, but Wilson saves him from awkwardly standing there too long. “I’ll see you later maybe?” Wilson asks with a smile that touches that echo in Barnes’ chest.

Barnes nods and Wilson nods back, then Barnes watches him go, closing elevators taking his smile away. It’s half a relief to be cut free from its grip, but the other half almost...misses it.

He heads into the apartment and does a round of physical exertion, trying to think through the emotions Wilson manifested with his words while also trying to settle his mind with the physical activity, staring up at the floor from his one-armed handstand.

\-----

He sits at the edge of the pool two days later, still thinking over Wilson’s words and the box of a past life he still hasn’t opened where he left it sitting next to the tv in the apartment livingroom. He watches the water gently slosh up against the pool wall, feels it against his bare calves. “What is ‘home’ to you?” he asks.

The waves gentle more and then he barely hears the man-creature swim closer. Barnes drags his eyes up to find the man-creature staring down at the water.

“There is a human saying,” the man-creature starts slowly, brows drawing down together, “‘Home is where you heart dwells’, not where you sleep. Which do you mean?” he asks, looking up.

Barnes pauses, thinking that over. “I don’t know,” he answers slowly. 

The man-creature lowers back, drifting on his back on the water, tentacles idly drifting and shifting. “I had never stayed in one place long as I grew,” he starts, and Barnes focuses sharply on him, “I drifted through seas, followed currents, moved against them, chasing warmth. Your ‘summer’.” 

His deep voice is calming. This is the longest he’s spoken to him, and Barnes finds he likes hearing him speak.

“My ‘heart home’, if I ever had one, was lost to me,” the man-creature continues, “I do not know how to get back.”

“Maybe we will both find it,” Barnes says after a moment.

The man-creature turns his head and looks over at him. “Maybe,” he agrees.

Barnes stands after a couple minutes and strips all his clothes off, then jumps into the water. The man-creature smoothly curves back in an impossible way, spine bending in a manner no humans can, not that gracefully, fluidly, not even the Soldier’s own. The man-creature curves down into the water and follows, his shadow.

\-----

Barnes kneels down in front of the box, staring at the top of it like it’s concealing an explosive. It could be.

He frowns slightly, staring.

...he frowns harder.

He lets out a quiet breath and reaches for the top, only pausing once. He opens the top flaps, then the next ones, and stills, eyes darting over the contents.

Two journals.

Clothes.

A small notebook.

A small, metal tin.

He reaches in.

He carefully sets the two journals aside, the clothes into their own, separate piles after sniffing them (they smell old and stale, nothing familiar), the small notebook. He opens the metal tin and it yields dogtags with his name on them, and he quickly closes it, forcing the emotions in his chest down and setting the box aside. He reaches over for one of the journals, dark blue, almost black. He holds his breath as he pulls the elastic strap keeping its worn, yellowed pages closed and slowly flips it open.

He stills.

He can’t read the words.

They’re illegible, as if they’ve gotten wet and dried, crinkled all over. He runs his thumb along the page edges and they all feel that way.

He starts scanning through it. There are fragments.

‘ _-wonder what it’d be like. I can’t tell anyone except myself, shouldn’t even be writing it, but it’d almost be a relief if I- if I could.’_

_‘Pa’s getting worse. He used to only get this angry once a week, but tonight he nearly hit Becca. Would’ve if I hadn’t-...lucky I-...’_

_‘-eyes like the ocean and just as deep. Sometimes I think…_ ’

He pauses, re-reading the passage, but it doesn’t continue, just stops there.

He keeps going. There’s mentions of his sisters, three different passages on food (bread, sausage, a ‘ _growing disdain for cabbage stew. I can barely look at it after three weeks of cabbage stew_ ’), going down to the water, but…

‘ _Sunsets are my favorite time of the day. They cast everything orange-gold, turn skin soft and eyes aglow. I never thought-_ ’

But nothing specific, like writing it down anywhere was a risk. It is a correct assumption, if him reading the words now is any indication. Hydra could’ve found this easily. But it doesn’t help him _now_.

He finishes reading through that journal and moves onto the next, a faded, brick red. The strap is more worn on this one, but still recoils some after he pulls it from the front cover.

‘ _Property of James Buchanan Barnes_ ’, is written in shaky cursive on the first page, the first thing he sees, far messier than the previous. He turns the page.

‘ _Ma makes the best apple cake. …-I-...even-...Martin-...-oesn’t like apples. I think he’s crazy. Who doesn’t like apples?!_ ’

Barnes blinks.

The intelligence level of the writing has decreased and the writing itself fluctuates between cursive and not, all of it shaky, but the cursive more so. He was...younger?

‘ _Ma’s givin’ me another sister! Or brother. I hope it’s a sis-’_

_‘Pa looks sad a lot.’_

_‘I punched Billy square in the face. Got-...-he pulled-...-pigtails!’_

_‘I made a new friend today! I think…_ ’

He sits back on his heels. 

‘A new friend’?

He keeps scanning, but the mentions of the friend are vague and scarce, nothing concrete. No mention of their preferences or what they’ve said, what they’ve done. He finishes with the notebook and moves onto the smaller one. 

There are realistic drawings of men and women inside, faces he does not recognize. Some pages have a small tentacle drawn in the corner. His sisters are in there as well, three little girls of varying ages taking up a two page spread, presumably his mother and father, maybe, two of the adult faces. Towards the back there is one of the man-creature, younger, eyes a little bigger, like a- the time between child and adult. The bottom right corner of the page is crinkled more than the others, like it’d gotten wet twice.

\--

“I found you,” he says, stopping at the edge of the pool. The man-creature surfaces five feet away after a few moments and Barnes sits down, turning the journal around to show him the drawing. The man-creature’s eyes lower down to it then widen a little as he drifts closer, hand reaching up out of the water towards it. He stops before actually touching the page and lowers it back to the water. “You were smaller.”

“We both were,” the man-creature replies distractedly, eyes still shifting over the drawing. They flick up to Barnes’ face and the illusion seems to shatter.

Barnes turns the notebook back around and holds it open in his lap. “How old were you?” The man-creature doesn’t answer, but that is not a surprise. It does make him consider the man-creature’s age though. He hadn’t until now, not without it having been brought to his attention and with more concrete proof that they might have known each other once. If the man-creature looks between a child and adult in the drawing from around seventy years ago, that would make him…

He glances up, finds eyes on him.

Maybe one hundred and forty years old, but at least one hundred if he ages anything like a human.

“Were you frozen?” Barnes asks.

The man-creature’s gaze sharpens, but he slowly shakes his head. His eyes are intelligent, knowing. If he is to be believed, he is over one hundred years old, older than himself, even. Time passes differently for them, his in frozen stops and starts and the man-creature’s one long stream.

 _Were you alone?_ He wonders, _Were you looking for Bucky? Or did you think he was dead?_

He wants to ask, but maybe doing so, no matter how much he wants to know, would be...too much right now.

“Do you know who the rest of these people are?” he asks instead, flipping the book back to the first page before turning it around. It’s a sketch of a man staring morosely out a window in a worn, cushioned chair, elbow on the armrest and knuckles resting against the underside of his chin. 

The man-creature drifts up to the wall, long nailed fingers resting over the edge along the white floor, looking over the picture. His gaze goes warm and liquid and has Barnes’ breath stilling for a moment, and then it sharpens again and shifts up to him. He doesn’t say anything, which probably means he knows something. It’s still frustrating, to have someone in front of him who has many answers, but refuses to speak them.

\-----

There’s a knock at the door. Barnes still opens it cautiously, but once again it’s only Wilson. He still checks to make sure Wilson’s not armed and is alone, but the need doesn’t feel as...urgent, as it did a week ago.

“I was wondering if you wanted to have lunch with me?” Wilson asks with a smile.

Barnes pauses in opening the door wider.

Food has been easy, what he’s found in the kitchen, frozen meals and canned goods. He’s been rationing, so it’s not completely filling, but it keeps him alert. Still, it has been more a need than a...leisure activity.

“Where?” he asks.

“Wherever,” Wilson answers, “My place, yours, the nearest cafeteria or communal floor. Wherever you’re comfortable. We could even order sushi and eat by the pool.”

That gives Barnes pause. He has spent more time with the man-creature than Wilson and the Avengers, but the Avengers own this tower, visit him on this floor, give him things. A fatal error on his part, to not research his potential captors.

“Yours,” he decides. Wilson looks surprised, but his smile gets brighter.

\--

Barnes takes a slow bite of the...burrito, Wilson called it, giving Wilson’s apartment a second glance. It’s sparse, but there’s signs of personal touch, unlike the apartment he’s been staying in: a framed photo by the television, red handled knives in a wood block on the counter with a tomato plant growing, tomatoes still small and a vibrant green, a dark green throw blanket over the back of the couch. Little things, but big differences.

His eyes dart down to the burrito when the flavors finally set in: egg, bacon, cheese. Simple, but...it makes his mouth water. He swallows, dipping his head down to take another bite.

They don’t talk while they eat, but Barnes watches Wilson, watches the slow dissipation of the shrimp...pasta? From his plate. When it’s all gone and Barnes’ hands are empty, Wilson wipes at his mouth with a napkin before picking up the takeout box and raising his eyebrows towards Barnes’. Barnes slides it across the table and Wilson smiles, taking it and his own to the trash before coming back and taking a seat.

“So...have you checked out the exhibit?” Wilson asks.

Barnes blinks, brows barely twitching together. “‘Exhibit’?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Wilson says, “Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian. Jarvis can pull it up for you later if you want to check out the site about it.”

Barnes watches Wilson another moment before dropping his eyes to the table, thinking it over. It might be useful, maybe, might yield some information. He looks back up, eyes catching on the way Wilson’s hands fold over each other on the table, eyes narrowing a fraction before he shifts them up to Wilson’s face. “Is there something else?” he dares to ask.

“Kind of, yeah,” Wilson replies after a moment, “I’m just not sure how to tell you, how you’ll react, but you have a _right_ to know.”

Barnes keeps watching him and Wilson eventually says:

“I’ve been hunting down Hydra with the others. We’ve taken out a few bases, found some...things, that might be related to you and how they were...containing you.” Wilson’s face pinches a little at the last, and Barnes keeps his expression steady.

Containment. The cryo tube?

A shudder spreads down his spine, more remembered frost than anything, but it has his toes curling a little in his boots, the only privacy he has anywhere.

Wilson watches him for a minute before asking, “What do you think?”

Barnes’ mind is strangely silent, no thoughts flitting, twirling across the barren landscape and rocky ridges. It’s just...empty, but it is a lot of the time.

He settles for not saying anything and Wilson’s fingers relax a little, head dropping a few centimeters as he lets it go. He looks back up and quirks a smile. “If anyone had told me I’d be hunting down nazis in the twenty-first century, I wouldn’t have believed them.”

Barnes blinks slowly, trying to absorb that, see if _that_ means anything right now, but his thoughts are as absent with that as with the previous. He doesn’t know what to say, if he should say anything. It was always better to keep his tongue quiet.

The next five minutes are quiet, and then Wilson gets up and shows him to the door.

“Maybe we’ll do this again sometime?” Wilson asks, and Barnes pauses. He inclines his head a little and Wilson smiles, nods, and watches him a moment before closing the door. Barnes waits until it is sealed before turning around and heading to the elevator, lips pursing a little after the doors have closed, ruminating on Wilson’s words.

\-----

Barnes takes a slow, deep breath and tries not to scrunch his nose at the feel of the weight of the glasses on his face. They’re thinner than the goggles, and the wires brush the tops of his ears.

“Ready?” Stark asks.

Barnes slowly rolls his shoulders, standing in the center of the cell. It’s pristine white. Different from Hydra’s cells. “Okay,” he answers. He hears a _click-hum_ and his pupils contract. There’s nothing at first, just a light _hum_ through his skull while the for poles Stark set up remain inert, lights on the tops the only sign they’re functioning. And then that _hum_ increases in intensity and he’s hit with vertigo as the lights fan out across the designated rectangle of space.

“ _Soldier_ …” someone whispers near his ear, and then the light resolves to a room, familiar but not, dark and cold, deep shadows in the corners leeching across the cement floor, dark blood stains fading into the black of them and in the dips and cuts and grooves in the walls. “ _What are you waiting for?_ ” a man asks in Russian. The voice creeps up his spine while a weight sinks to his stomach and he lowers to his knees with it, staring blankly ahead.

“Barnes.”

It keeps still, but it-

“Barnes, can you hear me?”

It has not been permitted to move. Time blurs, seems stretched and strange, and then it registers a warmth soaking into the front of its pants. There is no shame, barely relief. It keeps still. It has not been told to move.

Fingers comb through its hair, strands falling back in place around its face, and then the fingers grip and pull its head back.

“ _Filthy, like a mutt_ ,” the man- handler observes casually. A finger runs along its jaw and it holds still, staring up at the ceiling. The handler is a blur of shapes and color in its periphery. It has not been given permission nor has been ordered to look. The fingers trail up to its lower lip, and at the nudge, it opens its mouth-

The world turns into light and dissolves and it jerks, blinking at the- white ceiling?

“ _Barnes_ ,” someone says firmly.

It drags its head around and finds-

Its thoughts stop.

The man is not...is…

“Wilson,” the name comes out slow, tongue a weight in its mouth.

Not just Wilson. Another man that brings the vertigo- back? And a red haired woman with arms crossed and a strange look in her eyes. He feels dampness then and slowly looks down at the dark stain in the front of his jeans. He doesn’t feel...shame, per-say, but maybe some...embarrassment? He isn’t sure, but it is...uncomfortable.

Approaching steps draw his attention back up and he looks over, tensing as the red haired- Romanoff, draws closer. She drops a pair of sweatpants a foot away and he forces himself up as he unzips his jeans.

“Do you want to continue?” she asks as she settles back into the place she was standing.

“Maybe we should-” Wilson starts.

“It is not your decision,” she calmly cuts him off. Wilson’s mouth snaps shut while Barnes pushes his pants down, cleaning himself up with them as best he can before pulling the sweats on, then his boots.

“Again,” he decides.

There’s quiet, then the glasses start to hum again. He thinks of-

The lights flare and he’s staring into a sunset, the sound of water shifting and buffeting against the stone pier. He looks over and the younger man-creature is next to him, in the water, staring out at it too. He turns his head and smiles at him, and Barnes’ heart beats a little faster. The man-creature shifts closer to the stone and Barnes looks down, staring at and turning hs flesh left hand, notices how...much lighter he feels. His body weighs less, doesn’t have as much muscle and zero metal.

He forces his eyes back up and looks around before it confuses him too much.

They’re in New York City, an older version. The edges are blurry, some of the shapes distorted, but he hears...noise, people, some distance away, even though he doesn’t see any. He looks back.

The younger man-creature is still there, waist and below hidden beneath the water. He looks...not quite an adult, but close, like the picture in the journal. Not as old as he looks now, but not a child. 

The man-creature looks back to the sunset, still smiling. “It’s beautiful,” he says quietly.

“Yeah it is,” Barnes’ mouth replies, but he’s not looking at the sunset. An emotion soaks into his bones then, spreads throughout his body and feels just as warm as the sun’s rays on them, warmer even. It’s- it’s so _much_. He was made in ice, he knows this like he knows little else. He came from ice, and he always returns to it, this is a truth, but…

This warmth is...different, another truth? IT feels…

His body shifts and the man-creature looks back, smiling small and quiet, but as warm as the sun. He opens his mouth-

Barnes forces the memory away and the scenery disassembles in blocks of white light. He is aware of the eyes on him this time, the cameras. The words from his dreams- memories, between him and the man-creature; he doesn’t want anyone else to know them.

“Well, that was cutely romantic,” Stark comments.

Barnes pulls the glasses off, blinking slow and hard.

“Headache?” Stark asks, moving around in his periphery.

“Yes,” he answers, even though it is ignorable. Stark wanted him to report symptoms. But he- 

He walks out of the perimeter and sets the glasses back in their case, heading out into the hall and straight for the elevator, ignores Wilson’s curious look and Romanoff’s calculating gaze and follows the warm feeling in his chest, lets it guide him up to the pool and carry hi all the way to its edge. He can just make out the dark shape of the man-creature swimming closer, bigger than in the memory, then his head appears above the water. Barnes’ heart skips a beat, then his chest tightens. His head throbs harder.

The man-creature tilts his head a little, narrowing his eyes. “Are you-”

“I saw-”

They both stop, staring at one another. Barnes lowers himself to sit at the edge of the pool and the man-creature drifts a little closer. He raises his head after a moment and Barnes lets out a slow breath.

“I saw you in a memory,” he says slower. The man-creature straightens a little. “You were-... _we_ were younger.” The man-creature watches him closely. “We were watching a sunset.”

The man-creature drifts closer, then comes up next to him and turns, pushing himself up so everything above his waist is above water, the rest distorted below as he stares out across the pool. The vertigo hits Barnes again, memory overlaying when the man-creature turns his head to look over at him. Barnes nods and the man-creature smiles, just a little. It’s not the same smile from the memory, but it makes Barnes’ head pound all the harder. His expression tightens and the man-creature eases back down into the water as he turns, eyes searching him. “You need rest,” he says quietly.

“I wanted to see you,” Barnes replies. He makes himself get up after another minute when he starts feeling nauseous. “Gentle sleep,” he says softly.

“Gentle sleep,” the man-creature returns, eyes staying on him until the elevator doors close.

\-----

_A scream._

He curls up tighter.

_Chains jangling, saws whirring into tender flesh, sinking through bone. White powder died red as it shoots up through the carnage, red hitting white leather aprons in a showering spray._

_Screams tear his throat raw while he arches sharp against the cold steel table beneath him, three and a half limbs jerking hard against new leather straps._

_“Only the best,” Zola says, small and terrible next to the tray of gleaming metal, silver splashed with red, “Only the best for my work.”_

His throat seizes and his eyes snap open, right hand flying to his left arm. It slaps loud against metal and he drags in a breath like he’d been drowning. The porcelain of the tub shines low in the dim, white like-

He jerks up to his knees before he gags, twisting around and throwing up bile, staining the bottom of the tub. He gags, fire burning up from the pit of his stomach to the back of his throat, his nose- He scrambles to his feet and back until he hits metal, digging into his leg, jerking at the contact before clamoring out of the tub and making noise, so much noise, “ _Too much noise, Soldier!_ ” He twists the faucet on and wets his hand in the loud spray, wipes his mouth and then slurps warm water out of his palm, swallowing down the already fading burn. He reaches over and grips the metal of his left bicep, grip slick, and watches the water wash away his bile down the drain. His left arm hurts. It hasn’t hurt since-

\-----

_Drip._

_Drip._

_Drip._

_He looks around._

_Drip_.

_It’s almost pitch black, but he can almost make out something on the opposite wall._

_Drip._

_His gut squirms._

_Something tells him he doesn’t want to know what it is._

_Drip._

_Drip._

_“James Barnes,” a whisper._

_“Here lies-”_

_“-James Barnes. Captain-”_

_“32557038.”_

_“James Barnes.”_

_Drip._

_“Captain-”_

_Drip._

_“He’s not coming.”_

_“Who is he?”_

_“He’s not coming.”_

_“Where is he?”_

_Drip._

_Drip._

_“He’s not coming,” he whispers, a faint, dim light slanting down from overhead, there and gone like light refracting off a mirror, “He’s not coming. He can’t. I need to go to him-”_

_“You will die here,” a whisper._

_“Will I?”_

_“You will be reborn here.”_

_“Will I?”_

_“Will I?”_

_The gloom lifts, just a little, just enough to see- himself, right arm chained up while the weight of the left pulls his shoulder undone, strings of muscle and red a maze, bright white bone peaking through the network. He’s coming apart, bit-_

_Drip._

_-by bit._

_Drip._

_There’s red pooled on the floor beneath the gap of his shoulder, some on his naked thigh. He is a patchwork doll in the making, slowly being pulled apart at the seams, an abomination sitting in the neglected dark._

_Drip._

_They left a mirror for him to see all the ways he is broken now._

_Drip._

_He is looking at himself through the mirror._

_Drip._

_“You will die here.”_

_“I died here.”_

He jerks awake, staring at the side of the tub. It shines dim in the dark, like a reflection.

His stomach is empty. His chest feels like it too.

\-----

“Barnes?” Sam asks, pausing a moment before knocking again with the backs of his knuckles, “Can you hear me?” He waits again, looks up. “Jarvis?”

“ _It appears Captain Barnes is still asleep. Shall I leave him a message?_ ”

“Just let him know we’re all needed for a mission. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours,” Sam returns.

“ _Very well, Captain Wilson_.”

Sam looks at the door one more time, lips flattening before he turns to go.

\--

He stares up while he drifts on his back through the water, tentacles slowly roiling, gently propelling him down the length of the pool while he watches the light refracted off the surface shift across the ceiling.

It has been three days since he last saw Bucky, and his brow draws closer together. Where is he?

\-----

_The white light comes bright through the tall window, bringing out the faint strands of glimmer in smooth wood floor and washing out the rest. Their six shadows stretch across the floor, dark silhouettes moving in unison against the snowfall beyond the glass. The piano plays. They twirl as one, but the light catches the edges of their hair pulled taut and one becomes varied: brown, brown, red, brown, blonde, black. They twirl._

_“Which shall we start with?” a man asks to its left._

_There is just the sound of the piano playing, the faint shush of ballet slippers on smooth wood floor, the soft sound of steady breathing._

_“Natalia,” an older woman answers from his right._

_“You favor her,” the man says, “The asset will break her.” He doesn’t sound sorry, he sounds sure._

_A soft, short hum. “She will withstand. She is different from the others.”_

_Natalia?_

_“Drink with me,” a woman says, sitting down at the small round table in front of him. She leans back against the back of the chair like she is comfortable, even though he can see the faint tension in her shoulders, her torso, all smooth lines and flowing red hair._

_He stares._

_She smirks, small and quiet, but sharp all the same. Nothing about her is soft beneath the surface. He knows this, like he knows the way a gun feels in his hand, the way a knife feels sinking into flesh until it scrapes bone. He made her harder than she was. They ordered him to make her harder than stone._

_She leans back a little more in the chair and the wood creaks quietly under the pressure. She lets go of the bottle’s neck on the table and doesn’t open it. “Maybe later,” she says, like there will be a later, and then she fades away into nothing, like bird wings that beat too fast and turn to ghosts._

_He looks down at the bottle on the table, but it is empty, and red coats the wood surface, dripping over the sides in an endless pool. He sits still with his hands on his thighs, and doesn’t clench them, watching the red, and his reflection stare back at him from its smooth, thick surface._

_\-----_

_The room is full of warm colors: yellow light on brown wood, a worn countertop cleaned to a shine. There’s a table in the middle of the small kitchen with a white cloth over it, but there’s enough room to pull out each of the six chairs with a little room to spare. There’s a curved, white fridge with a blank piece of paper on it held by a small, round magnet. Humming fills the space and he slowly turns to find a woman with her back to him at the sink, soapy water up to her elbows. Her orange-gold sleeves are rolled up and her dark brown hair is pulled up in a relaxed bun._

_The humming stops so she can say, “Tell your sisters it’s time to wash up,” warm and soft._

_He blinks and stills, reaching up to touch his wet cheeks. He doesn’t feel...it’s not potent or all encompassing, but there’s a light ache in his chest. He looks down. Both hands are flesh, white sleeves rolled up to his elbows._

_“You hear me, Bucky?” the woman asks._

_“Yeah, ma,” slips past his lips on reflex. He hears light laughter from down the hall behind him and then two little girls run past him around his legs, and he looks down, sees bouncing, brown pigtails-_

_The room shifts and he looks up. There is a mat on the cement floor and the room is huge, bordered by four gray walls with a gold hammer and sickle and star painted on the one on the left. He looks down and his left hand is metal; he looks up and there are two girls fighting on the mat, one with blonde hair, one with red._

_Natalia?-_

\--

He leans over over once they’re in position above the Tower and pushes the charge out of the helicopter, wind buffeting his face. It lands on the roof next to the covered pool with a hard, magnetized _THUD_ and whirs to life, lighting up blue-white from the inside out-

\--

“ _Captain Barnes, there’s an attack on_ -”

The power cuts out as he jerks up in the tub, doing a quick sweep of his surroundings before getting to his feet and out into the apartment, grabbing two knifes from the kitchen counter. Memories push and clamor but he tries to shove them down and focus, pausing to listen before pulling the apartment door open.

The lights are out in the hall too, the hall dim and gray from the clouds gathered outside beyond the apartment windows behind him. He presses an ear to the stairwell door and hears nothing, repeats it at the elevator door, hears nothing. It’s not a guarantee that no one’s there.

He glances to the stairwell then back to the elevator before grabbing the door and slowly pulling, opening it an inch. He still hears nothing, so he pulls it open far enough to jump in, grabbing the center wire and pausing.

He should go down to the ground floor and escape, but the man-creature is…

He looks up.

He starts climbing.

\--

He pulls himself up out of the pool, looking out the windows. He doesn’t see anything but the sky and a few buildings, but he can hear a helicopter above. He looks up, brows drawing lower. Jarvis quit working and the lights went out. He can’t feel the constant thrum of the Tower through the water anymore. They might be under attack.

He undulates his tentacles and moves across the textured tile to the main elevator, pressing his hand to the door when he hears a wire _clang_ softly beyond it. He backs up and moves to the side. After a couple minutes, the door is pried open and and a rifle comes into view, quickly followed by hands and arms- He lashes out, grabbing the rifle with a hand and curling his tentacles around the invaders.

\--

Barnes scales up the elevator shaft, keeping an eye and ear out, but runs into no interferences by the time he reaches the pool floor. He pries the doors open after listening and climbs out. There’s two agents on the floor at the other elevator and he heads over, checking the pool on the way. He can’t see the man-creature in it, doesn’t see the water rippling in a telling way, doesn’t hear anything. He crouches down to check the agents, sees their faces twisted in horror and then checks the elevator shaft beyond them, looking down, then up. There’s a _clang_ from above and his eyes narrow. He jumps in, grabbing the center cable and making his way up.

He steps out onto the roof, gets rain blown into his face by the wind and blinks it clear, staring a moment.

There’s a helicopter hovering above, blades whirring in loud _WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOPs_ with a robe dangling down from out its side. There’s a glowing metal box next to the pool and the man-creature’s fighting in the rain, teeth bared while his tentacles lash out and he grabs hold of two agents, throwing them into the pool. They struggle in the plastic cover and the man-creature pulls four more in with him, all falling with a loud _SPLASH_.

Barnes moves and deals with three more, grabbing a gun and shooting one, then kicking another off the roof of the building over the perimeter guard. Another agent slides down the dangling rope from the helicopter above before Barnes can’t move and shoves him into the metal box next to the pool. Electricity sparks up his left arm and he shouts, forcing himself away from it and punching the agent square in the chest, sending him into the pool tool while his arm tries to recalculate, fingers spasming and panels fluctuating. He looks up at the helicopter and doesn’t see anymore, sees the helicopter pulling away while they drop the rope over the side. He watches it for a minute to make sure it’s leaving before looking back to the pool.

The water’s read, four blotches spreading throughout the rest of the bright water and the dark shape of the man-creature moves close, tentacles and hands coming up out of the water to haul himself up over the side while he coughs. Barnes moves over while looking up to watch the helicopter move away, then looks down- stilling. The man-creature stands on two feet, looking up at him.

“You can walk?” Barnes asks, mouth hanging open a little.

“Can you?” the man-creature returns, quickly heading for the stairwell door.

Barnes stares after him a moment before mentally shaking himself out of it and following.

They exit out into the parking garage. The man-creature punches through the driver’s side window of the nearest car and unlocks the car, pulling the door open and brushing the seat off before getting in. Barnes gets in the passenger side and watches the man-creature search the car, grabbing the keys hanging in the visor and starting the car, flooring it out of the parking garage.

They drive for an hour before the man-creature pulls over behind a building in a small town and they switch cars, driving for another hour, the man-creature naked in the driver’s seat while the Soldier keeps an eye on their surroundings, on the lookout for Hydra and keeping an eye on the people in the cars they pass or that pass them when he’s finally stopped staring at the man-creature. It’s easier to focus on something he knows how to do instead of the rapid, incessant questions bubbling up in his chest.

The man-creature pulls the car over once the sun is starting to set and night is creeping across the sky from the West, turning off onto a dirt road that heads up into the growing forest. The trees soon become denser and the night becomes darker, and soon the only light is the glowing green from the dashboard and the car’s headlights out in front, tires crunching across gravel. Eventually, it slows to a stop and the man-creature puts the car in park, then turns it off, plunging them into black. They sit quietly, just the sounds of their even breathing filling the space. The questions start flooding now that they have the chance: _How do you have legs? How do you know how to drive? Where did you learn this? Can you fight, too?_ He asks one:

“How long have you been looking for me?”

He hears leather creak - the man-creature’s grip on the steering wheel - then the man-creature lets it go.

“Seventy years,” the man-creature’s voice answers.

Barnes’ eyes widen a little and then he purposefully relaxes, absorbing that, tries to trace back through what he knows.

 _World War Two_ , he thinks, _When Bucky went missing? Or was pronounced dead_. He was not as alone as his handlers had led him to believe. He was not _just_ the First of Hydra or _just_ the asset, he was something to someone, this creature sitting next to him in a stolen car in the night. Someone was looking for him. It doesn’t change anything, and yet his world tilts on another axis, everything slanted just off-center. There was- is? A world beyond Hydra, and he used to belong there, and it followed him into this moment in this car.

Suddenly, the car feels too small, as claustrophobic as his cryotube, and he’s opening the door, light streaming from the inside of the car out into the night until he climbs out and shuts the door behind him. He stares out into the dark, listening to the crickets and animals while he forces himself to breathe slow, thoughts a spiral of static. There’s a glitch in his mainframe.

His fingers curl, uncurl.

He is damaged.

The Barnes part of him huffs a quiet breath and thinks: he’s always been damaged.

 _Little girls laughing, pigtails bouncing passed his thighs, his ma’s back to him at the kitchen sink, soapy water almost up to her elbows_.

His fingers curl again.

Maybe not always, but enough. And now…

He takes another controlled breath of _dirttreesnight_ and turns back around, slipping back into the bright light of the car before plunging back into dark again with the closing of the door. In his brief look, the man-creature was sitting still, naked, long hair slowly drying against his back and side while he stared ahead at the center of the steering wheel.

 _What is the mission?_ He wants- needs? To know. “What do we do?” he asks instead.

“What do you want to do?” the man-creature asks back, soft and quiet. Barnes looks over at his dark silhouette. “You were with them a long time.”

Barnes thinks the man-creatures fingers would curl around the steering wheel again if they were still gripping it.

“ _What do you want to do?_ ”

The man-creature, Wilson, they ask that like it’s easy to know, to decide. It sounds simple, but it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to consider.

“I don’t...know,” he struggles to answer honestly. Something brushes his left hand and he holds in most of a flinch. The touch leaps away like he’s made of fire and Barnes reaches for it, grabbing onto two fingers. After a moment, they slowly curl around his own. He can’t feel the heat of them, or maybe the a-little-too-cold of them, but the pressure makes something in his gut warm.

They need to keep moving if they want to stay ahead of Hydra, but-

They lower their hands down to rest on the center console, and he looks over at where they would be if he could see them.

Maybe they can stay like this...still, in the dark, just a little longer.

\-----

They get out, leave the car and keep walking up the road. The man-creature doesn’t complain about being naked or without shoes, and Barnes listens to his bare feet on the gravel and never smells blood, so he must be okay. After ten minutes, they hit a house. The lights are off inside, but the porch light is on and it makes the white of the paint bright in its glow, quickly fading into the dark of the surrounding pitch. He hears a low growl from the side of the house as they head over to the truck parked in front of a large shed. The man-creature’s lip curls up and he growls low back, an almost-whine tinged under it. The dog goes silent as its head drops, tail tucking down between its legs as it slowly backs up.

The Soldier walks around the truck and forces the driver’s side door open with a sharp tug, glancing back at the house. No lights come on so he grabs the steering wheel while the man-creature moves to the front and braces his hands above the grill. They both quietly move the truck, Barnes pulling and the man-creature pushing, and Barnes steers it around before the man-creature moves to the back and they push it a mile down the road. Barnes climbs in and unlocks the passenger door and the man-creature jogs up and climbs in, closing the door while Barnes pulls down a panel below the radio and hotwires the truck to life. He grips the door handle and holds the driver’s side door shut while they pick up speed down the gravel road, veering around the parked car. 

The Soldier pulls onto the highway and drives until the sky starts turning gray, stopping outside a small town. They both abandon the truck behind some trees and the man-creature waits behind some bushes behind a small store while Barnes breaks in and gets him some clothes. The denim jacket is too large on his shoulders, the jeans a little wider in the waist, and the shoes are a little small, but it’s all he could find. After, they head back up into the forest, regardless of their stomach’s complaints, the man-creature keeping hold of the waist of his jeans to keep them up while they walk. They head in deeper and deeper until they pick up the sound of a stream.

It takes another half hour to find the water. It’s a low stream filled with small rocks and dirt. They follow it further into the woods until they find a cluster of boulders on their side of it, some sticking up through the water in angled curves. The stream steps up in levels to the next plateau of water, long tree branches hanging out across it like they’re trying to reach the other side. They both look around, and Barnes notices the man-creature’s gaze lingers on the water but he doesn’t move towards it.

“We need food,” the man-creature says, scanning through the trees.

Barnes curls his fingers one at a time, plates shifting with a faint whir. “I’ll be back,” he replies, pausing in his turn towards the trees and looking back, “Do you know how to start a fire?”

The man-creature nods and Barnes heads into the forest. His heart rate picks up the further in he goes, the farther he gets away, uncertainty budding and welling in his chest. _Will he be there when I get back?_ But the Soldier forces the thoughts down and focuses on the mission, fingers curling tighter while he keeps walking.

\--

There’s a fire flickering through the trees when he gets back to the stream. Barnes breaks through the bushes and sets the gutted deer on the rocks. He left the entrails where he killed it, no reason to draw other predators near. He heads back into the trees to find some sticks, then comes back and tears the deer apart and skewers the meat. He hands a couple two the man-creature where he’s sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, then pauses. “Can you eat this?”

The man-creature glances to him briefly, then to the meat slowly starting to cook. “Yes.”

Barnes thinks a moment, slowly raising a brow. “The fish?”

The man-creature rotates his meat a little. “I can’t eat it all the time, and Stark could afford it.”

Barnes’ lips curl up a little and he looks back into the fire, rotating his own meat.

That answers some questions. The man-creature is versed in humans, people’s behavior and the value of currency, can drive, and he’s unable to eat human food as a constant. And, he’s been looking for ‘Bucky’ for seventy years, since sometime during World War Two, presumably when or after he was pronounced missing or dead, most likely dead, and they knew each other before the war, if he can believe his memories and the journals Wilson brought him.

“What was he to you?” he asks, looking over.

The man-creature keeps his gaze on the fire, quieter than the surrounding forest. Barnes wasn’t really expecting an answer, but part of him...maybe that part was hoping.

After the deer is gone, Barnes moves to dump the remains in the forest a fair distance away. When he comes back through the bushes, the man-creature is in the water, black tentacles roiling languidly in the stream. The flowing water ripples and buffets up around the edges of them, smooth and scarred. The Soldier stands there staring for a minute and it hits him again how...impossible the man-creature is.

His hair is dry now, a long, single, gentle wave, and with it, the oranges and pinks and violets of the setting sun hit and make it shimmer in warm, golden hues. His skin is similar, colors washing all over him like paint on a canvas. From the waist up, the man-creature looks more like he belongs in the forest than in a deep ocean somewhere.

The man-creature looks over at him, smiling faintly. The memory doesn’t hit hard this time and stays in his head instead of overlays the reality, but that pang hits the inside of his chest and his breathing picks up a little. He’s not in danger and he’s not hunting, so he’s not sure what to make of the feeling, just that it has him walking across the rocks to the stream, pulled closer by some emotion he can’t name.

“How long can you be out of water?” he asks.

The man-creature looks down at his tentacles, two of their ends pressing together like shy fingertips. “A while.”

 _But not indefinitely_ , Barnes reads between the lines.

He moves over and takes a seat on a nearby boulder, shifting just a little to settle on the hard surface. He watches the man-creature move closer, eyes drawn down to his tentacles, practically rippling over the rocks. It’s still a little...dizzying, watching them move. They move so fluidly, unlike anything else he can remember seeing. 

One of them slowly drifts up out of the stream and he looks up, finds the man-creature looking at him almost curiously, but not quite. Barnes holds a hand out and the tentacle sways up, the tip drawing lightly down the top of his index finger. Barnes keeps his hand still, then slowly turns it over and curls his finger around the tentacle. He can feel the scars rubbing against his skin when it wriggles. His lips twitch. “Are there others like you?” he asks, voice hushed for a reason he can’t say.

The tentacle goes still, then wriggles a little like a hand-wobble. “Some,” the man-creature answers. Barnes look up. The man-creature’s looking down at where they’re connected and Barnes feels the tentacle slowly wriggle again. “There were more,” the man-creature continues, “But we are dying.”

Barnes’ eyes widen and the man-creature looks up, blinking before huffing a breath.

“I mean, our numbers are thinning,” he clarifies, and Barnes relaxes a little.

“Why?” he asks.

The man-creature rolls a shoulder, looking back down at their point of contact. “We are eaten, the oceans are filled with more poison each year. I am sterile. I think most of us are.”

Barnes blinks, sitting up a little. “You’ve been with another?”

The man-creature’s brows draw together a bit and he rolls his shoulder again. “We propagate once in our lives. We could do more, I think, but the drive to mate only happens once. It becomes all you can think about, maybe nature’s way of trying to keep us alive.”

Barnes’ shoulder slowly slump a little and his chest feels...heavy. “You are alone?” he asks, it comes out softer, quieter than he means.

The man-creature stares at their contact for another moment before his expression smooths out and he looks up.

...Oh. _Oh_. Is that why he was looking for Bucky? Or still is.

Barnes slowly curls another finger around the tentacle and it squeezes him back. “I am alone,” he says quietly, “I don’t…” His own brows draw together. “I think I am the only Winter Soldier, and nothing I remember looks like what I see now.”

The man-creature’s eyebrows angle up a smidge and the tentacle gives him another squeeze.

“Are we alone together?” Barnes asks.

“Are still alone if we are?” the man-creature returns. As frustrating as his questions can be, the man-creature has a point.

Barnes look at him for a long moment. “I still don’t know your name, if you have one.”

The man-creature’s lips curl up, just a tiny bit. “It will come to you.”

\-----

The sun sinks and the temperature quickly drops. The man-creature shifts back to legs, tentacles shrinking and gathering from eight to two, pale overriding and black fading down his legs to his toes, vanishing from the tips. The man-creature wiggles them a little and then lays his clothes out over the rocks next to the fire as a makeshift bed, laying down. Barnes lays down on the rocks two feet away while the fire works on eating up the fresh wood. The rocks are hard and dig into all the dips and curves of his body through his jeans and t-shirt, but he’s slept on worse. They both lay on their backs and stare up at the stars. They’re bright and vast and numerous, so many more visible than in the city, like someone splattered white paint across the sky.

Barnes looks over all of them while he thinks, chasing a question around his skull like a target that keeps frustratingly slipping through his fingers, won’t stop until he runs it to ground.

_“What do you want to do?”_

What does he want to do? It feels nebulous, there, but never taking shape.

 _I don’t know what I want to do_ , he thinks at the stars, then says it out loud, tests the way the words feel on his tongue.

“Do you want to go back to them?” The man-creature asks quietly, “You were with them a long time.”

“No,” Barnes answers immediately, a little surprised at how easy it comes out of him, “They would take away everything.” Everything he knows, everyone he’s met, everything but how to fire a gun and follow orders. He knows this like he knows the sky is blue, even if it makes his head hurt thinking about it.

It’s quiet for a minute.

“I could kill them,” the man-creature offers.

The Soldier’s thoughts jerk to a halt, skidding like tires on a dirt road, like a bullet hitting just wide of its mark. “Not all of him,” his voice comes automatically, calmer than he feels, “Cut off one head, two more grow in its place,” he recites. He feels eyes on him and looks over, meeting the man-creature’s gaze. The fire reflects off of his shining eyes, but that’s not why they look ablaze.

“I would kill them just for making you sound that way,” he says.

Barnes’ mouth opens a little but he closes it, swallowing down the words. _I wish I remembered why you cared enough to say that_. He looks back up at the stars, stares at them few a few more minutes, and then closes his eyes.

\--

_He makes himself stand up, shoes scuffing against the brick. “I’ll come back.”_

_Blue eyes stare up at him, brows drawing together. He hasn’t aged more than a year since Bucky met him when he was six, if that. It makes his chest ache thinking about it, that he’ll be seventy, if he lives that long, and Steve will only look thirty. He pushes the thought away for a countless time since he turned fourteen._

_His friend braces his hands on the brick, the off-white of it turning dark gray from the water seeping from his fingers, eating up the dust. “I will go with you.”_

_“Steve, no,” Bucky argues, kneeling down and putting his hands over Steve’s, stopping him even as his heart beats faster, “You can’t be out of the water that long and no one even knows how long this war’s gonna last. You can’t.”_

_Steve frowns up at him, brows furrowed, still raised more than halfway out of the water where anyone could see the black below his waist, ready to follow him, and it makes Bucky’s heart beat that much faster while breaking it at the same time. Steve’s brows furrow further and Bucky’s tangle up before lowering, set and determined. “I know,” he replies to the unspoken words there, “But this is something I have to do and not something you can follow me into. As much as I wish you could come with me, this war’s not something I ever want you to see.”_

_Steve stares up at him and Bucky becomes aware of the short distance between them, the five inches of space. He shouldn’t want to close that distance, not with a man and especially not with one who’s half octopus, but he still does. He thinks he might always want it, no matter how hard he tries pushing it away._

_“I will if you do not come back,” Steve replies quieter._

_Bucky swallows, staring down at him. “I’ll come back.” He doesn’t mean to promise it, because he can’t, but it sounds like one anyway._

_Steve slowly lowers back down into the water and away from him, and Bucky lets his hands slide away and can breathe again without his heart trying to beat it’s way out of his ribcage._

_“I’ll come back._

Barnes blinks his eyes open, staring into the early gray of pre-dawn. The dream lingers like a faintly sweet taste on his tongue, a little bitter, but mostly good. It feels like he just said the words, can feel the shape of them lingering on his lips. Something shifts against his stomach and his eyes dart down to find a hand and long, sharp nails laying relaxed over his shirt. He carefully, slowly turns around under the arm around his waist and finds-

“Steve,” he whispers. The man-creature’s eyelids flutter a little, then after a moment, slowly blink open, hazy and unfocused. It takes a minute for them to really see him.

“Something wrong?” the man-creature asks, expression hardening and eyes darting away as he focuses on their surroundings.

“Steve,” Barnes repeats, and Steve’s eyes dart back to him, slitted pupils expanding a little while they stare at each other, “Your name is Steve.”

Steve’s mouth opens then closes, the hand on Barnes’ waist moving up to touch gently to his stubbled cheek, a little cool. Steve’s forehead touches his own and it feels just the same. “Bucky,” Steve says softly, full of wonder.

Barnes’ cheeks heat a little, and for the first time in...the longest he can remember, he _feels_ a little like Bucky.

\--

They head out of the forest as the sun comes up, holding hands. Steve - his name is _Steve_ \- had taken his right one after putting his clothes back on and Bucky hadn’t known what to do and...didn’t want to let go. Steve didn’t seem to want to either, so they kept holding onto each other.

They walk for four hours, alert to their surroundings, the sounds of the forest, until it starts thinning outside another small town. Barnes-...Bucky, he wants to try thinking of himself as that, takes a car and they keep driving. When Steve reaches over and takes his hand again, Bucky’s heart speeds up a little and he holds Steve’s back. It’s...nice, to touch, and not have to overthink the threat (even though part of him still analyzes it, is aware of the thread Steve poses), to not be touched with violence or false promises, and it’s...nice to touch someone else in the same way. A part of him revels in the contact, something simple but...good.

Inevitably though, his thoughts spiral back to their situation.

“We should go to the sea,” he says.

“What about your friends?” Steve asks.

Friends? He supposes that could be another term for strangers who helped him. The closest of them might be...Wilson, but Bucky’s not really sure what ‘friend’ means.

“I don’t know,” he replies, there’s a lot he doesn’t know, but what he does know is, “Contacting them is a risk. Hydra is probably monitoring them.”

“I don’t like them,” Steve says, low and quiet like tempered steel, “Can we get rid of them?”

“There’s too many,” Bucky answers, “They are everywhere.”

It’s quiet for a minute, a more contemplative silence than he’s used to.

“Maybe you should tell your friends what you know,” Steve says, “They have more than we do.”

He’s not wrong, Bucky realizes. “It’s an option,” he says.

“What are the other options? Besides running,” Steve replies.

“Nothing,” Bucky answers, “I don’t have the resources to take them on alone, and you will need to return to the water.” It’s important that Steve does, especially now that Bucky remembers, the feeling of urgency.

Steve’s quiet again, then gives his hand a squeeze, drawing his eyes briefly over from the road. “Whatever you decide,” Steve says, staring right at him, “I’m coming with you this time.”

Bucky tightens his fingers around Steve’s and takes a slow breath. “Okay,” he breathes.

They drive until it’s dark and then Bucky pulls into the outskirts of a town and finds a motel, quietly breaking into one of the end rooms so borrow a phone. He dials the operator, then gets connected to Avengers Tower. It’s easier than he thought it would be.

“Hello, this is Avengers Tower, how may I help you?” a woman on the other line politely asks.

“Jarvis,” Bucky tries, and the line _clicks._

“ _Captain Barnes_ ,” Jarvis replies.

“Can you trace this call and ask Wilson to find me?” Bucky asks.

“ _Already done_ ,” Jarvis replies.

Barnes takes a breath and hangs up, looking over at Steve. “They’re on their way,” he reports.

Steve squeezes his hand and Bucky squeezes his back.

\--

He hears a jet land half an hour later from where they’re waiting in the car, but doesn’t see it, just Romanoff and Wilson emerging from between the trees. Bucky gets out and Steve follows. Wilson’s shoulders seem to slump a little.

“Glad you’re okay,” he says once they meet up, “You two did a number on the Hydra who infiltrated the Tower.”

“Is Jarvis okay?” Steve asks.

Wilson blinks over at him, surprised, and nods, eyes darting down to his legs and back up. “Yeah, he’s fine. EMP didn’t damage his systems.”

Steve nods and Wilson and Romanoff’s gazes shift back to Bucky. “You coming back?” Wilson asks.

Bucky nods slowly. “I will tell you what I know about Hydra, as much as I can.”

Wilson smiles while Romanoff tilts her head back towards the forest. “Shall we?”

They head into the forest, the jet only distinguishable from the surrounding trees by the open ramp, a dark gray maw in the middle of browns and greens. Bucky and Steve follow Wilson and Romanoff up the ramp and inside, and he blinks when he sees the tub of water sat next to the bench seat on the left side. Steve sheds his clothes and steps in, letting himself...unfurl. Bucky looks up at Wilson while Romanoff heads up into the cockpit.

“Just in case,” Wilson shrugs with a smile, “Figured he might appreciate it.”

Bucky’s chest warms a little and his lips twitch up.


End file.
